The Librarian.

If there was something that Jill hated, that was sand, well, not really to be honest. In fact, she liked sand and the feeling of it sliding between her toes and on her scales when she went sunbathing on the beach. The one problem she was having right now was that there was way too much sand... definitely way too much for her taste. Then again, it was her who decided to go in the desert, alone of all things she could do.

"Fuck me sideways... where the fuck am I? I cannot have gotten lost, not now..." She took out the map she had in her backpack, one that was getting dangerously empty and void of rations and water, especially water. She sighed and looked at the horizon, trying to see if there was anything at all that could have told her where she was or even where she could go. No such luck, just as the previous three days. At least there was nothing that could have blocked her view of the stars and the compass was still working.

She had relied on the map to ger that far, but the map she got from the old library was just as old, if not more, signs of wear over the course of decades if not even a century or two showed their presence once again. The paper was yellow, the edges ripped in several areas, the writing garbled and in an old dialect no one spoke anymore... the one good thing it had was that there were some pretty good drawings on top, the signs pointing at a location she was sure existed. She had spent more than a year, a particularly long and frustrating one at that, trying to piece together something useful and in the end, roughly a month before, she had found some old reference in a book and a couple of maps that matched with the map.

For about a week she was so happy, browsing through books and newer maps that showed the change in time and when she found out what area she was looking for, she seemed to lose all hope: the location of the map, the place where untold riches and knowledge was held, rested in the desert, and not any desert, but the Akatai desert, a deadly place that even the tribes of camels living next to it didn't like. And yet, there she was, bravely walking in the depths, too far to get back and too tired to go on, but she didn't have any other option.

She put the map back, clearly useless now, and shifted the backpack on her shoulders in the vain hope that the thing would get heavier as she did so, food magically appearing inside by the grace of the gods she worshipped.

One thing she was grateful for: her dragon heritage, it gave her the strength to bear the heat and the particular skills to survive in this harsh environment, not that it was helping her much at the moment. No food and no water were the bane of every creature, maybe golems could be spared the need, but they were not technically alive, by all means and purposes. Don't tell them that, they are quite touchy about the topic.

"Why did I think this was a good idea?" Of course she knew why: she had something to find at the destination, something that had bugged her for her whole life and something even the more learned of historians had failed to answer: why the War of the Mad Kings had started. The worst conflict of the previous generation had started all of a sudden and with no visible causes and Jill was determined to find to the point of risking her life to do so.

Another day went by, another day of thirst and relative hunger for her, but tomorrow would be far worse, as she had just now finished the very last drop of hot water her waterskin had, now but an empty container. She tossed the thing on the rock she was looking at and cursed the heavens for their lack of mercy. In a moment of clarity she realized her mistake and knelt on the sand immediately, asking for forgiveness to whatever divine being had been listening to her in that particular instant. Gods were... fickle beings to say the least, they ignored you and then, in the instant you forgot their power or missed a day of prayer, they shot you with lightning, hail, opened up a hole under you feet or put a demon under your bed to ambush at night and they were very clear on that, barely hiding their intentions. If they were satisfied, they'd grant good weather, crops, nice things and maybe a new vein of gold in that old mine you thought was dry, or maybe pass by and say hello.

Once she finished her repentance, she slumped on the sand, grains getting on her face due to the slightest of winds. Even that was not a relief in her case.

Then, as if her prayers had been answered, a large snake wandered out of the sand the waterskin laded on, attracted by the vibrations she caused. Jill didn't move her body and just wiggled her toes, grabbing the snake's attention.

The brown scales slid on the sand, leaving a faint trail that disappeared immediately. A pink tongue flickered and took her scent, the head of the snake locking on those feet she was moving to get it closer to her. As more of the snake came out of the sand, she began to think she had made a bad choice: the damn thing was probably well over ten metres in length, more than capable of eating her whole which, by the looks of things, that was what it was going to do. Its mouth opened and took her toes in, making her shudder as the warm and wet flesh crept further and further along her legs. She could have attacked it, kill it, but she had another plan for now: let the thing think it had won an easy lunch and then attack it.

The snake swallowed her knees and contracted his muscles, pulling itself directly to her waist in one fast motion. Jill grabbed the dagger she had on her chest and stabbed its head, blade piercing the skull, scales and then went a little bit too far, sinking in her own flesh. She wanted to curse but the idea of having to pray again and the thought that maybe this was a sly trick disguised as a blessing stopped her in her tracks. She pulled her legs out, slick with saliva and maybe a little bit of digestive fluids.

"Gross, gross and stupid. What kind of snake doesn't check if the prey is dead before eating it? Damn animal, to think we share an ancestor is an embarrassment." She flicked her own tongue and slapped her tail on the sand, kicking the dead animal in a fit of rage, causing her leg to ache and spill blood. She trapped another curse in her mouth.

The snake died, providing her with meat to eat and blood to drink but this wound was going to be a hassle. Without bandages and without medicine, it could get infected if she didn't sterilize the thing immediately.

Jill sighed and took her dagger in hang again, blade still wet and dripping. She wiped it on her arm and looked at it, mustering courage in her mind to do what she had to do and then breathed on the dagger, orange flames hitting the metal, heating it up. Once the dagger was hot she pressed it on her leg, the wound sizzling and sealing under the temperature. Being part dragon, although several generations back, had some perks of course, but not all good. Her flames, a secret she never used in public, were weak and took a toll on her lungs and throat, nothing compared to a pure blood or a proper dragon. Still, enough to help her in this case.

After this emergency she sat on the corpse of the snake and tried draining its blood, waterskin now full of life saving liquid. Normally drinking blood would cause death, in large quantities, but she was not like those weak humans, though weak herself in most ways. She drank the warm stuff as it still flowed, throat welcoming the relief, the taste was horrible but better than dying of thirst. The meat was even worse but as she ate it, a thought sparked in her mind: there is no food here, nothing at all, so how come such a big snake could live, especially one that didn't even know how to hunt properly? No way it could have gotten far...

She jumped on her feet, teeth grinding in her pain and dug frantically in that spot where her lunch had come from. About ten or fifteen minutes later, a large hole appeared, sand falling inside and giving her more space to get in.

"Yes..." There must have been something down there that could support such a big creature, something that could likely help her as well.

One problem arose though: the hole was tight, very much tight, she'd probably fit but it would be difficult to move forward. Jill sighed and took her backpack off, holding it with her tail behind her, heavy with meat and blood for later, just in case.

She took a deep breath and then dove in the hole, hands forward. She skidded, trying to win the battle for a few more centimetres in. Little by little, her feet found traction and her hand tugged on a root that was in front of her, effectively trapping herself in. It was a hit or miss and she prayed to whatever god was listening that she had gotten a hit...

The hole went deep in the ground, roots poking her sides and dark, oh so dark. Any light that might have come from behind was stopped by her buttocks and even if it did manage to pass through, it would have helped little. At least she wasn't some big chested woman or, heavens forbid, a human or a minotaur, else her chest would have prevented her the entrance far too early. How did they even walk around with so much extra weigh on their front? They could trip and fall at any moment! Regardless of what was going on her mind, she kept going and going, claustrophobia kicking in a bit too late to put some sense in her mind. Then, all of a sudden, the ground crumbled under her weight and Jill screamed, falling down into darkness.

She woke up later, only the gods know how long, sore all over and with a sharp pain in her left arm, a quick check told her that she had likely broken or dislodged a bone it in the fall but the faint light coming from a cluster of mushrooms nearby showed that nothing was poking out of her skin. With a sharp tug she set the bone back together, pain coursing through her body. She tore the remains of her shirt and used them to bandage her arm, letting it rest on the makeshift support.

"Fucking hell, first I stab myself and then I dislodge an arm... Lords above help me..." She hoped for some divine intervention but she knew deep down, that she was not rich enough or influential enough to get preferential treatment. Exceptions could be made sure, but why would her be the one in a million case? She had better luck trying to get an audience with the Dragon Emperor. She tried to do that and the janitor of the library laughed at her for even thinking that. Damned parakeet, how dare he mock her for trying to be better...

Yet another sigh marked this horrible day. She got up and looked around, using the minimal light of the mushrooms as her only source to understand her surroundings: under her feet laid an old and ruined stone slab, cracked and full of moss, but the regular incisions told a lot to her. A stone pillar to the side, lying on the side, the remains of a lamp, all pointed at one conclusion and one conclusion only: she had found her goal, or at least the hope that her journey had not been wasted.

The stone path stopped a few metres in front of her while behind it seemed to continue further.

"Deeper in the mouth of the beast it is." She went for her backpack only to notice that it was gone and no amount of searching found it in her vicinity, probably lost in the tunnel above. "Just perfect."

Again, no amount of cursing would have helped so she just steeled herself and took the first step in the new tunnels. Rats large as cats scuttled when she moved, some stopping to feed on mushrooms and moss. The snake had indeed lived here.

The mushrooms were a godsend, so to speak, definitely helpful in their way, giving her a rough idea of what she was walking on. When the slabs became less and less ruined and the mushrooms almost popped up at regular intervals, rather than randomly, she quickened her pace, footsteps echoing in the otherwise silent tunnel. Roughly an hour after she had stared walking, the mushrooms were replaced by lanterns, with glass on and weird blue glowing things inside them. Jill looked at one from up close and found out that it was some king of crystal, one that she had seen before, in a shop and priced at well over a thousand gold pieces, enough to buy a house and use the rest to eat and pay rent for a year. And yet, she was seeing dozens of those, used as lights for a tunnel no one used and each was five time larger than that one she saw back then. She'd be filthy rich with one and there were dozens... A sigh broke the silence again and she resumed walking.

It was only ten minutes later that she found herself in front of a large gate, inscriptions all over it, making it look like a work of art more than a door.

The words were familiar to her, the same dialect on the map was used here again, maybe the map came later or before, likely the former considering how old this place was, buried under the sand for untold centuries. She had always wondered why the map showed a large building in a vast prairie and yet, there was only desert for hundred of miles. The locals told of an irate god or a prank between deities, but those were things beyond reasoning and concerned her little. What she wanted was the knowledge of the library behind the door.

The inscriptions told of a dangerous creature, an enemy of the gods or something on that line, confined underground to protect themselves and avoid death. Something clicked in her mind: the gods, afraid? When was the last time that happened? Ten, no twenty thousand years ago? Right about the time when they started being a little more present in their lives...

What kind of creature could frighten gods to the point of them hiding the very trace of its existence in one gigantic desert with millions of tonnes of sand and death? Well, she had come this far, might as well find out, right? What was the worst that could happen? She would have died anyway outside and there was little to nothing to do now.

The door didn't have a lock, or at least, nothing too obvious, but she had had the time to figure out all the little signatures that gods had and learned that they loved to put them everywhere, a tag of sorts, one that would tell her how to open the door. And there it was, a small scribble at the very base of the door, a few incisions that bore the work of Trikki, one of the many gods that ruled over craftwork and production. With her hands joined, she began chanting her spell, slowly and carefully, magic building up in her being as she gathered it from the Mother Earth and channelled it into the door, targeting the mark of the god, waking it up so that it'd trigger the opening mechanism. Several tens of minutes later, she was still praying and chanting, her knees sore and hurting, but her efforts were not wasted at all and a few seconds past the forty minute mark, the cuts glowed and the light quickly spread over the whole door, growing more intense by the second and blinding a few minutes later, only to disappear in the next moment, a force sending her on her feet.

The door swung open with a bang, each half slamming on the relative wall, knocking dust and rocks off the ground, leaving the passage open for a very shocked Jill.

"That was easy. Guess the gods didn't feel like putting too much thought in a door after dumping all that sand outside and spending decades driving everyone away." She was not wrong. "So, what's so scary that it needed a whole desert to be hidden?" Jill gathered all her courage and stepped in, door closing behind her with another loud slam. "Jinxed it."

Whatever was there to lock the door came back and the seal glowed on the other side. Trikki was not so stupid after all and effectively tricked her into thinking she had won over him. To be expected from his very name if one put some thought into it but she did not know that the god had been once a god of mischief, turned to a life of hard work after a monumental fuck up in the higher spheres of existence.

Jill was now walking on a perfectly maintained stone path, lanterns sitting on high poles, casting their lights far and making her squint her eyes to adapt to the new level of illumination. What she saw now was a sight out of this world: rows upon rows of bookshelves, thousands upon thousands of books if not millions, all perfectly lined one after the other, reaching the very ceiling that was more than ten metres higher than her. At the centre of the room she was currently in, dangling from a large hook was a chandelier, thousand of crystals making up even the smallest part of it and glittering like a sea of stars.

Her hands trembled and she darted for the closest shelf, reaching for the first book that was at eye level, a heavy and thick tome with a chain and a hoop attached to it, like all the other books. She ran her hands on the cover which read 'Story of the first king of the Handals', a name she had heard before, in a legend when she was in school, one that was told when kids gathered to tell ghost stories before bed. That king was said to have imprisoned his wife after he found out she cheated on him with his brother, locked her away in a cell for the rest of his own life, and when he died, she prayed to a dark god to resurrect him as a ghost doomed to wander the halls of his home forever until she died as well, but learned soon that whatever spell put him back with the living also kept her alive forever and in the end, both prayed for the god to kill them. What the book said, was a little different: the queen, upon cheating with the brother of the king, was confined to her quarters, never to leave them without the king himself, completely sealed from the outside, so the queen just, pretended to dress like the king, famous for wearing a mask, even after his own death, reason for which the population thought he had come back to life.

Had her friends known this side, the story would have turned from a spooky tale to a comedy told in taverns to entertain drunkards...

Immersed in the reading, she failed to notice that something was coming near her, something long, covered in scales glittering under the light of the chandelier, seemingly in search of something. When she realized that she may have been in danger, she froze, book still in hand, barely breathing. The... thing had no eyes, no mouth, nothing but a tube of flesh that thinned gradually, much like her own tail, gliding on the books and making the hoops of each one jingle lively. The thing stopped moving and latched itself in a hoop, taking the book attached to it out of the place it was in and then retreated, going back to where it came from, the only sound that it ever been there was the missing book. Jill finally breathed again, heart pounding madly, trembling. The thing, whatever it was, must have been at least twenty metres long, and that was only what she could see, nothing more but what if there was more to this creature? What if this was merely the tip of the iceberg? Surely what scared a god was not just that. She had to know.

Going against every cell of her body, she put the book back in place and followed the creature. It wasn't hard: everywhere it went, it caused more hoops to jingle, creating a trail of sounds to Jill to go after. The thing led her between dozens of shelves, small rooms with tables and more books piled on them, each one of the precious tomes a treasure on itself and together they made for the greatest treasure of them all.

Eventually she realized that the thing she thought was the head, was in fact, a tail, as a more massive shadow and a far heavier presence made itself known to her behind the shelf she was hiding in, the clear sound of steps echoing in the library. Something huffed and muttered in a language that she did not know and never even heard before, words and syllables, even the most basic sounds alien to her. What was behind the shelf?

Whatever that was, it was moving and it was going to come to her side, each step closer to her. Jill froze for but a second and then dove under a table that was nearby, hoping that the creature would not notice her. She held her breath, again, and hoped for the best, prepared for something horrible to come out of the darkness. A claw emerged from the other side, pitch black and attached to a foot covered in fiery red scales, which in turn was attached to a leg, muscles rippling as it moved and dragged the other leg forward, an equally sharp set of claws coming in her view. Then it came the rest of the body: muscles seemingly sculpted beneath a layer of glossy scales, strength exuding with each simple movement, a waist and a torso worthy of the best painters and artists, a tail that was indeed as long as she thought it'd be. What she didn't think would see, were two sets of arms, four arms and four hands, currently holding a book each, pages flipping on their very own volition or by some spell. The creature must have been easily over two and a half metres, massive, but not extremely so, she had met a proper giant before and hid in her hair as she crossed a shallow sea to get to another continent on her way there.

From her position she could not see the head, if it even had one and she doubted she wanted to see it right now, although her curiosity was bubbling up with insistence. She looked with awe as the creature lifted its feet and rested on its tail as support, only to then rise in the air as those muscles pushed the body up and up to the top of the bookshelf, reaching the ceiling and then coming back, making the feat look easy. What was this thing? Its characteristics were nothing like she knew: a tail too long for something of that size, four arms that belonged to a race of beings that went extinct centuries ago, muscles that she had always imagined belonging on the body of a god, a real one, not those effigies she had, all topped with perfect scales that would have made the Dragon Emperor blush in shame. Had this thing been male, or even female for that matter, and not so weird and hidden from the world itself, it could have conquered kingdoms merely with its presence or joined a god or goddess of beauty in the higher realms.

The creature moved away from her and disappeared behind a wall, the tip of its tail the last thing to go out of her sight. Jill took a deep breath and calmed herself, coming out of her hiding spot when she was sure that it was not coming back.

"What the hell have I gotten myself into?" She had just calmed herself when the creature popped out the same corner it had disappeared into. For a second, a very long second, the two stared at each other, not a word said. Jill looked into the eyes of the creature, definitely a male, now that she was not trying to hide from it. Those amber eyes had something to them, maybe because of the glasses he had, or maybe it was something else entirely, something that she could not quite place in her mind. The creature stared at her in the same way she did, but the reaction was completely different: whereas she was scared but didn't move, the creature instead chose to dive behind that corner and then poke his head out just a tiny bit. "Hi. I'm Jill." Was the one thing she could muster to say. Idiot, was what she thought in the next moment.

The one if front of her was still not saying anything, just... hiding and watching. His tail lashed out and grabbed a book that was around her, Jill somehow managing to read the title: guide on social interactions. Pages fluttered at incredible speed as he read the book, grabbing another and then one more, seemingly reading three at the same time.

Time passed and he still didn't say anything until he slammed all the books shut, eyes locked onto her.

"Hi hello salutations how are you I'm fine thanks it's a pleasure to meet you." His voice was... wonderful to say the least but the words it was attached to sounded more like someone was trying to welcome ten people at once or trying to say every possible greeting in the same sentence. Jill stared at him, not sure on what to say. He waited for a response and then opened up the book again, pages going back and forth. "It should work... is there something wrong? The books are almost never wrong..." The male fell in a cascade of words she could not believe would come from the one in front of him. She breathed in.

"Hi, it's a pleasure to meet you too." The male stopped reading and looked at her again, a weird smile creeping up on his face, revealing a scary set of teeth in an attempt at smiling. "You ok?"

"Ehm..." more reading. "I am doing... wonderful, thank you for the concern."

"Are you reading the appropriate response from the book?" He nodded and Jill raised an eyebrow, more than surprised. "Why?"

"Ehm..." He read more, nervous. Once he could not find a good answer on the books he had, he made a dash for other ones, digging for precious information. "I... may not have enough data on how to answer that properly." He seemed... ashamed of not knowing something.

"Try and guess." Now it was his turn to be shocked but some cogs turned in that alien skull and he arrived to a conclusion faster than expected.

"Well, it's been two centuries and a few odd years since I last saw a living being capable of speech other than myself, which may be a cause of my... lack of social skills." Jill smiled awkwardly and the male's eyes glittered, happy to have come to a conclusion. He walked closer to her and she stepped back, hands on the dagger on her chest. The male stared at her and his tail shot for yet another book, flipping through its contents greedily. "Are you... scared?" She didn't move, still wary of him. "There is no danger in here, rest assured." Seeing as she was not getting any less scared he fell deep in thought, feet high in the air and resting on his tail like it was a cushion. "Oh, you're scared of me! How interesting." He was definitely happy to have understood what was going on, making Jill wonder how such a socially inept creature could be a danger to a god in any way other than to annoy them to death. "Oh, right, sorry, I was forgetting about the important stuff. Ehm, well, at this point I should either treat you to something to eat or exchange more pleasantries, which one do you think is better?"

"I'm not hungry."

"Oh, pleasantries it is then. So, what's the weather like outside?" Jill stared with her jaw hanging open just a bit. What the hell was passing in this thing's mind? Still, she had to please the one in front of her.

"It's hot, sand everywhere, I almost died because there was no water."

"Interesting. Would you say that you prefer rain or a dry weather then?"

"Anything that doesn't try to kill me."

"And..." He stopped on a specific page, reading the content over and over. "... do you like... spicy food? I... personally do not but I can tolerate... spices..." His tone was void of any change almost as if...

"Are you reading word by word the book?"

"Ehm... yes... is that socially unacceptable by any chance?"

"Of course it is!" She was nervous, tired and now engaged in a meaningless and weird conversation. Jill snapped and yelled at the one in front of her, who was just as unfazed by her emotional state as before. "What kind of person doesn't know how to talk to people?"

"One that has lived in complete solitude for centuries but I may be guessing that part." He smiled, pleased with himself. Jill took that sentence as a bucket of cold water and slumped on a chair that was near the table, happy to be resting her feet for a change. He was technically correct and she missed it. How hard must it be for someone to be alone for centuries and then be put in front of a normal person and to be expected to have a normal conversation?

"Wait..." something was bothering her. "How old are you?"

"If I am not wrong with my calculations, I should be..." He took a small device he had on his wrist and opened it. "... two hundred and eighty five years, ten months, thirteen days, three hours and a half old." He smiled yet again. "Do you want me to tell you how many seconds?"

"N-no, I'm fine. Lords... two hundred and eighty..." He hissed at her. "What?" A chill ran through her spine, an omen of something far worse happening.

"You worship the gods?" There was... poison in his voice, a scary change from the awkward and rather plain tone from before. His tail moved to the sides, hitting shelves. Jill was scared to answer but she had the impression that if she didn't answer, then things would be far worse than what she could imagine. The air was getting cold but she did not notice that, something lowering the temperature.

"I-I have to... there's no other choice..." He hissed again and stepped forward, looming over her. She whimpered in fear and watched the creature grow bigger, eclipsing her figure and everything near her, growling as his head hit the ceiling and made the shelves shake and rock. She curled up in a ball as the air got colder and colder, her breath turning into fine mist. The now gigantic male was hissing loudly, pissed and angry beyond anything she could even imagine.

"Do... not... speak... of them... here."

"I won't, I won't... please... please don't kill me..." She was not someone that got scared easily, but those eyes, those magnetic and deep pupils, the very presence he was oozing, quite literally, were nothing like she had ever felt before. Even the fear that a god might get angry at her or the knowledge that she had offended one was paling in comparison to the behemoth in her eyes... she curled up even more, trying to shrink away from the monster that could have easily eaten her alive right there if he so wanted. "Please... I don't want to die..." She sobbed and cried, a show unbefitting of the intrepid female. The male seemed to come out of his anger and shrunk to more manageable proportions, worried about the young female in front of him and extended a hand towards her, following the instructions of the book he read before. She screamed in fear as she felt the strong scales and fingers touch her, the male recoiling back in shock.

"I'm... I'm sorry, I-I shouldn't..." He looked at her for one more moment before disappearing in the labyrinth of shelves and rooms that was the library. She kept whimpering until she knew that he was gone and even then, that... feeling of death, despair, pure anger... it was not going away, sticking to her like tar.

"What the hell... just... what is he?" If this was just him getting angry for saying one single word, then what if she outright mentioned the gods, insulted him and... oh, heavens forbid, attack him? She felt like just being near him could kill her and she'd not be wrong...

Now that she was alone again, she could take a breather and rest, gather her thoughts. Her attention, though, was drawn to the books he was reading before: how to interact with others, reading into people, social interactions first volume. She almost felt pity for the poor thing: needing to read a book on how to talk to people was... just plain wrong.

Jill got up from her seat and looked beyond the corner: he was not there and nowhere in sight even around the next one and the one after that. As far as she knew, he was gone to the other side of the library, wherever that was...

"Just how big is this place?" To the best of her knowledge: big, in reality, way bigger.

The map and the rest of the documents talked about the greatest library ever, something to rival the celestial collections of some gods, though nowhere close to the Library of Time, in which, according to even the legends that the gods themselves have, held all the book from the past and the future, all the way to the end of time. Whether that library was real or not, no one really knew but if there was, then it'd be the best thing ever, period.

Jill wanted to know what this library had in store for her and she was prepared for it or she though she'd be. With every shelf she skimmed through, with every book she looked at, she marvelled more and more, even the smallest of books containing knowledge that even some Archmages would have to spend years to dig up in their academies. She found a section on the analysis of mathematical problems, solutions to dilemmas lost for decades there for her to read.

"Ah, the Gyul Diagram, interesting read." She yelped and pressed her back to the shelf, knocking a few books off their places. He frowned and put the back in with his tail, the motion fluid and showing the years of experience he had. Jill saw that in his hand was a tray filled with food and other things, all fresh and for her to take. "I am... sorry, for, ehm, before. It was my fault so I made these." He pointed at the tray and the steaming dishes. "The books say that food is a good thing for apologising. Am, am I wrong? I shouldn't be..."

"N-no, it's ok... I guess. Thank you." She was afraid of the food, it may have been poisoned but she was more afraid of him so she took the first thing she could get her hands on and ate it. It wasn't bad, it reminded her of a dish she tried in a specialty restaurant once. "It's... good."

"Oh, thank you. I was worried the recipe might have been recorded incorrectly or that your biology might not be suited for it."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't, I don't mean to scare you, but I know of some compounds inside foods that cause reactions in people, allergic reactions. For example, this one right here, contains a type of enzyme which for humans is very pleasurable, but for canids is lethal."

"Chocolate?"

"Yes... correct." He was surprised to see that she knew that too. "Have you tried it before?"

"Yes, is this... the dark type?"

"What do you mean?"

"You, you can mix milk with chocolate and make it sweeter, different ratios make for a different taste. I like it sweet." She stared as he placed the tray with care on a table and then took a book, empty, writing what she said on the paper, not even using a pen for that, words merely... appearing as his finger glided on the sheet.

"Amazing, this is news to me. Thank you."

"For what?"

"For sharing your knowledge. Nothing is more important. Oh, now that it comes to mind, why are you here?"

"I-I wanted to find this place, the legends told that there was a library in the Akatai desert, one that held everything the old kingdoms had to offer."

"So, I take you braved the desert and risked your life, just to come here?" He was clearly happy, beaming if anything. His tail was a clear sign that he was excited.

"I am so happy that you came then! Where do you want to start?"

"I have no idea."

"Ok, well, we could... we could pass on with some history of the races then pass onto their biology, I have some interesting studies on the way felines process emotion I'm sure you'll find lovely and then, uhm, some sociology or medical sciences but for that we'll need to move to another section. Here I only have the more discursive topics, for some practical examples there's the lab.

"Why not start with why you're here?" She asked, almost a whisper. He hissed but the male didn't turn into a ten metres tall monster. "Or your name, that's fine as well."

"My... name?"

"You don't have one?"

"I do but... I-I think I forgot it a while ago, maybe a century. I mean, who was going to call for me?" He did have a point. "But... if you want one, then... Kal may suffice?"

"Kal? As in, the rejected son of the god Arathius? The one who was hidden from the world because he was too weak to fight for his life?"

"That one, nice guy according to the records of those who met him back in the day."

"There's record of him?"

"Well, of course. There's everything here, including the biographies of pretty much every famous person since the foundation of the Kingdom of Illyria."

"Including, let's say... the life of a certain king of Jamaira?"

"Which one? Helzen, Hyrin, Jimial?"

"Hyrin..."

"Sure, I've got him. Come on, let's go, knowledge doesn't wait for those that search for it." He grabbed her in his hands, the lower arms supporting her and the upper ones keeping her in place, avoiding that arm that was clearly injured.

Jill let out a surprised scream when Kal, she had to use a name after all, got his feet in the air and slithered on his tail, much faster than she thought he'd be, smooth, almost like he wasn't even moving. The creepy thing was that he kept smiling all the while, and Jill could see well that he had not smiled once in his life: the muscles twitched, straining and the overall expression was more of a

man trying to force himself than anything.

A minute later, likely several hundred metres away, Kal stopped and dropped her on the floor again with the care one would expect to give to a baby or the Golden Egg of Naira. Considering his age compared to her, she was technically a baby.

For the next hour or so, the two went over a lot of books, which went in great detail about everything the kings they did, or rather, Kal did and told her what she needed to know. The hybrid, as Jill began to think, since he was a mix of at least three species as far as she knew, could read a whole book in seconds, each page memorized down to the last letter.

"Oh, I'm not that good, it's just that I have read each book at least ten or twenty times, I just... need to remember the stuff inside."

"Is this what you have been doing for... two hundred odd years?"

"Of course, it's the one thing around here that I can do other than making some experiments, magic and well... ehm, stuff." He blushed when he mentioned 'stuff'. Jill was puzzled for a few minutes until she realized what 'stuff' meant and why would someone blush when mentioning it, blushing herself in the process. "So, ehm, you asked me to see what the records told about the claims that Jamaira had on the neighbouring nations and I can say that, they are weak and frankly, a guy screwing your wife is not a reason to start a war."

"The War of the Mad Kings started because the opposing king fucked the queen?" Jill was horrified and slumped on the chair while Kal was just surprised, taking notes in his notebook.

"What about that war? I have some vague reports from that period but I am very sorry to say that all of our records stop around the time I was put in here and that should align with the beginning of that conflict. Why are you so upset?"

"That war, that fucking war, ended after ten years, thousands of dead, horrible deeds done by both parties..."

"Standard war then."

"Yes, but... in that period rose a claim that the two kings were unfit to rule, the people rose in both countries, dethroning the royal families. There was chaos for ten more years and other regents moved in to grab a piece of the cake, the next century or so was a hot pile of shit left steaming on the road. Sorry for the language." Kal put the swear words in his notebook as well. "I always wondered to know why that war started: some fire burnt down one of the libraries above ground and we lost a lot of books and what caused that war in the first place. Some speculated it was for resources and some as a pre-emptive strike. I always have been curious."

"Why?"

"What?"

"Why did you want to know that? You sound like you have... personal motives to learn about that war, especially if it meant heading inside a death trap and risking your own life, just to learn the cause of a war? Sounds a bit too much for me." She stared at him. "I may, ehm, have refreshed my psychology skills when I was cooking. I am... not good with people, you may have seen that."

"After the riots things calmed down a bit, the massive invasions somehow managed to scare the nobles left to bad together and hold tight for a few more decades. There was a treaty, the nearby kings stopped tearing the two countries apart and signed for the peace but the struggle kept on going for a while more. Several nobles opted to defect for other countries and brought their lands with them, their people too but not all were fine. In the end, there was only the capital left and the last descendant of the old royal family that rose in power too late to be helpful. My parents were killed in one of the last riots caused by the people that were left of Jamaira, the last struggle to keep the nation afloat, right after the great-grandson of that king took all of our money to rebuild an army that lost the moment it stepped on a battlefield. If you can call sitting ducks in a castle a battlefield."

"I'm sorry to hear that." In all of his clumsiness, he was very sincere, or seemed so at least. After a few moments of thought, he grabbed her and held her close to him, humming something in a soft voice.

"What are you doing?"

"I am helping, that's what the books told me." Jill, in all her life, had experienced little affection and the little she got was from her parents. This was... awkward, clumsy, needless, stupid and amazing.

She was absolutely shocked by how good it felt: his scales were warm and soft yet firm enough to feel like a slab of granite, his muscles felt like steel wire, his heartbeat like a drum, and that voice... soothing like the wind at night after the rain. He, by all means, was perfect, regardless of his appearance. He ran a hand on her head, caressing her far softer scales with care. She knew he didn't mean it, and just read it on a book somewhere, written by a dead dude sometime in the past three hundred years and yet... it felt good, peaceful. When had it been the last time she rested, not merely slept or napped in an inn, but proper rest, nothing to driver her forward now that she found her objective. She could... take a few hours to sleep, right?

Kal hummed, rocking back and forth on his tail until he felt her sob quietly in her sleep. He was just ass shocked as she was, never having expected that method he came up with after reading ten books on female psychology. He took a moment to look at her: scales of a pale green, small, petite, delicate, charming even for an old man such as him and smelled so good. He inhaled her scent, the first ever visitor in his long life was a female and he was loving it, every second she merely existed in front of him.

How could such a small creature have survived the desert above, challenged the very gods that put him there so long ago and survived. She even got injured: a fractured arm and a leg with a fresh scar, burnt tissue and a dagger with the residue of blood on it.

"Poor thing..." He leaned in close to her, his forehead resting against her, magic coursing through his hands and onto her wounds. The contact made her shudder and he stopped healing her for a second, afraid she'd wake up and resumed when he was sure she'd not. "So brave and so fragile." Something stirred deep inside him, something he was not sure what, like a tingle, a spark but he didn't know that, engrossed in admiring the small female in his arms.

Kal took her to his bedchambers, or what he had made an old room to be, the gods had not been so kind as to give him a bed. Hundreds of notebooks were stacked on top of each other in a messy show that was so different from the rest of the neat and tidy haven of knowledge, like a little corner of chaos. He let down on the bed, mattress sinking slightly, and covered her with soft blankets. She curled up in a ball and hugged a pillow, biting into it with her small teeth and nibbling on it.

He realized she had barely touched anything of the food he made and had not drank or rested for the long hours he searched through the books. She must have been exhausted, she had to be after crossing a desert on foot, alone.

Kal slapped his head as silently as he could, cursing at the gods like nothing before and at himself. She was wounded, tired, dirty and hungry and he kept her up like an idiot but he'd make it up later, now he had to cook and prepare his apology.

Jill slept long and well, for once in several months the need to wake up early didn't arose, nor there was any threat to her being that loomed over her. She just laid in the bed she had been put in and relaxed.

When she woke up, the first thing she did was take a deep breath, stretching her arms and legs, tail making a small tent of the sheets over her body. When her brain registered the scent that was pervading her nostrils, she immediately took a few more breaths with all her strength. She felt like she was floating on cloud each time she took in that scent, what was merely an action becoming a need, she needed more and more.

Eventually she realized where she was and what she was doing, shame overriding her desire for that wonderful scent. It was his and she knew it now and the idea that she was feeling like she was in heaven just by sniffing his sheets was not something that she was comfortable with in any way. It was downright shameful and only low class women went around sniffing males and raising tail for them. Then why the idea of doing it for him was not that bad right now? Was that a residue from the day before or something else entirely?

"You're awake I see." Kal's voice woke her up for good, her body instinctively jerking up and pulling the sheets closer to her breasts, realizing only now that she was as naked as she could be.

"Why am I naked?"

"Oh, you needed new clothes and I have just come to give them to you, for when you'd wake up but you are already awake so..." He fiddled with a small bag in his hands and then gave it to her. "Just take them." she opened it and saw that inside there was a completely new set of clothes, light pink, perfect for her own scales and roughly her size. She put it on, marvelling at the softness of the fabric. Kal gave her a good look and adjusted the clothing in the right points and made the hole for her tail just a bit wider. "It's not the best, I only had a few hours to do them."

"Made clothes this beautiful in a few hours, alone? Where did you learn?"

"Guess..." He smiled but this time it was less... artificial, nice almost. Jill realized that she had said something rather stupid.

"Sorry."

"It's fine... care to get something to eat?" Jill was clearly interested in the offer, the recent blunder and the thought that maybe he had seen her sniffing his sheets (which he did) quickly forgotten in the throes of hunger. She scarfed down everything he gave her with little etiquette and Kal just looked, almost fascinated by her voracity, but deep down he was just happy to see her do something, anything at all. "Did you like it?"

"Mhppph." She may have said something but her mouth was still rather full.

"I'll take that as a yes then." His heart skipped a beat in that moment, basking in the feeling that someone was eating his food and liking it of all things... was that what happiness meant? That fuzzy feeling inside his chest? But all his books told that happiness was something that every creature could go searching for their whole lives and still not manage to find. It was a rare thing for Kal to doubt his books, especially after having read them so many times, but errors were not uncommon, only rare. "So, ehm, I don't mean to intrude in your business but what are you going to do now?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean... now that you have found this library, what are you going to do?" She stared at him for a few long moments.

"I-I don't know... I honestly don't know. I was... so busy in finding it that I didn't really think what to do after." Jill always had a plan, like the one that took her there: convoluted, complex, filled wit hurdles she steamrolled through, but the obstacle in front of her was so great, she didn't think she could succeed. "I don't know."

"You could... stay here, learn as much as you can. We could... write a book with the things you know, I could teach you magic and everything I know..." Kal was more than happy at the prospect of having Jill around, having grown attached to her already and Jill knew that, but she could not blame him.

"Kal, I'd love that but, I am not going to live long enough for you to teach me all that you know, maybe I could live to a hundred if I am lucky, but there would still be so much left to learn."

"So, are you... going to get out of here?"

"Is it even possible?" His heart ached when she looked interested at the idea of going away. She just got there, she wouldn't go away and leave him alone so fast, would she? She really wouldn't? What would it take for him to have stay? What?

"Hey, I have something to show you." He grabbed her without letting her say anything. She noticed her arm and leg were fine. Had he done something? Magic was something not to be wasted in her mind, then again, he used priceless crystals as lamps...

He darted through the halls and then through a series of stairs, going down, down, down, deeper into the bowels of the earth. He reassured her he wasn't going to do anything funny or weird, that he had only something he wanted her to see.

The stairs went dark all of a sudden and he accelerated his pace, scaring her a little. She could not see and if she moved, all that she could find was a wall of muscle and scales that held her with the grace of a fairy. She leaned her head on his chest, letting his heart scan the time. It was wonderful.

Just that would have been fine but what came next was way better than just some muscle, though attached to what could be described as an adorable dork and then the tunnel opened up in a cave and for a moment she through that they had come up in the open: a sea of glittering stars stood above her, making for a beautiful sight like nothing the world had ever seen, each star a crystal big enough to buy a kingdom.

"What is this?"

"This... is where I go when I want to pretend I am not trapped inside this wretched place, you know, stuff." So that was what he meant with that. Jill was rather embarrassed to have thought otherwise of him. "It makes me think of the night sky. I was actually not sure whether to show it to you."

"Then why?" He put her down and fidgeted nervously, tail shifting to the sides. "This is enough to buy a whole world a couple of time over. Wait, what are these crystals?"

"Bombs."

"Bombs?"

"Well, more or less: concentrated energy in a crystalline mesh but it's concentrated enough to actually be dangerous and I am the one person who can make use of them without dying in the process."

"How?"

"Ehm... I may have made a pact with some god to get the ability to handle the crystals and then help him in his work. I guess the other gods found out but I was already too far and knew too much so they kind of put me here to rot forever. Shit happens."

"Can these crystals kill a god?"

"Kill? I have devised a machine that shoots shards of crystals at high speeds, it doesn't just kill, it annihilates them. Whatever made these things was an enemy of the fuckers up there." Jill was scared that a god might hear them but the notion that he was already being punished for just being clever was way worse. She cursed in her heart, happy to be able to. "It could also let me out."

"Then why do you not escape?"

"And do what? All I have known for all my life is here, in this library, any family I had, if I had one, is long dead and I bet the gods had some fun with them as well. I can't go actually."

"Why?" He looked away. Jill reached out with her hand and put it in his chest and felt the heart beat so hard. "Are you ok?"

"I'm scared ok? I'm an old, old man, with way too many books and no idea on how to live outside of this place. Here I have food, relative freedom, peace of mind, it gets boring though but... look, I wanted to show this to you because I wanted you to stay with me."

"Kal..."

"It's ok if you don't want to, I understand. I just... you just came here, why not stay a few more days?"

"I-I..."

"Please... don't... don't leave me alone here. I beg you..." She looked as he began to shudder and cry, sobbing, curling up on himself. "Please, please... you... you just arrived... stay..." For such a big guy that was ten times her age, he was so, so fragile. Jill's heart ached looking at him. An old, lonely creature, begging for some company, would it be so hard to stay a bit more?

"It's ok." She put his head on her chest and hugged him, trying her best to help him calm down. "It's ok."

"No, it's... It's not ok, not at all. Look at me... I'm a mess, an ugly and horrible mess."

"I'll stay." His head snapped upwards and his eyes locked on hers. "I can stay some time here. I have nowhere to go as well, you know? Dead parents and all and my friends thought I was mad when I began searching for this place, probably think I am dead anyway." Kal was beaming, his mood turning from sad to happy like a puppy would. He was definitely cute enough to be a puppy, was the one thought she had in that moment: big eyes locked on her, tail wagging happily, looking at her with the same adoration they had.

"Thank you..."

"It's nothing really, I owe it to you." He was confused and she pointed at her now not wounded arm and leg. "You did a lot for me, the least I can do is keep you company."

"I mean, you don't have to." She put a finger on his lips. Her fingers were so soft...

"No questions, I stay..." Kal smiled, a proper, earnest smile this time.

"Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou!!!!!" He hugged her back, completely enveloping her. Jill chuckled, enjoying the feeling of resting against his body for that short while.

The next few weeks were something out a dream for Kal: Jill was far more gentle and nice than he had expected and devoured books like nothing, though still far less efficiently than he did. She was fun, charming, knew a little about cooking and told him stories that on his books could not be found, real stories, not the stuffy and crusted records he had, even the masterpieces of literature he had pales to even the smallest thing she told him. He was even more eager than her when it came to knowledge, decades of 'starvation' taking their toll on the poor thing.

Jill was more than happy to tell him her life and he repaid her with food, care, books the likes of which had been lost to the ages and together they worked on redacting some things she knew had changed over time with new discoveries, although Kal had come to similar conclusions merely with time and endless resources. She learned that he had a garden in which he grew the food he ate, using magic to make the plants grow and multiplied seeds so that he'd not be without and starve. For the first week, he let her sleep in his bed alone, Kal resting on his tail or on the floor, but on the second week, she offered him to get in bed with her.

Anyone would have misunderstood her intentions but for him it was different. He slept on the same bed but far from her, afraid of something he didn't even know. While she was in the land of dreams, he got closer, each night a little bit, watching her, happy to just have her. One night, she grabbed his hands, still asleep, and dragged herself closer to him.

Kal was shocked and held her close, basking in her scent and softness but his bliss was short lived: something stirred inside him, something he hadn't felt in more than two centuries, and he got scared. The forgotten feeling was mistaken for illness, tests were made, results came back negative to all viruses, bacteria and fungi. Jill noticed his predicament and proposed to help, but he shrugged it off as nothing.

Things kept going like this for a few more days, now the two actively sharing a bed together, her tail curling up his legs in her sleep, and his arms holding her close, possessively, never wanting to let her go away. Each time she'd wake up and leave his embrace, his heart ached, longing for the next night more than the one before. He got scared of this desire that was quickly becoming a need, more than food, more than water. More tests, more negative results, more frustration and all of it was kept secret from her.

Then, on a night, Jill's hands reached for his chest, her snout rubbing against his scales and by accident, rubbed her thigh against his legs, soft and toned, touching the area between his own thighs and the stirring became unbearable. He ran out of the bed, waking her up in the process, and hid in a lab, staring at the organ rising from his slit, forgotten but still functional after roughly two hundred years of absence. He knew what it was and vaguely remembered the feeling and its purpose other than mere waste disposal but had no idea on what to do, books were helpful but not nearly enough to tell him how to fix this emotional state. He had a small section on erotic works but he always ignored it as it was mostly unrelated to his condition and had no effect on him. Kal arrived to the conclusion that his biology, being vastly different, did not apply and thus he forgot the content of the medical books relating to male anatomy. One small gap that could have helped him.

Suddenly, her figure changed: her laughter was more contagious, her form more alluring, going beyond charming, her scent at night so much more enticing and yet, she had not changed in one aspect. He found himself looking at her, thinking at how soft she felt, how good she smelled, how much he wanted her to stay close, admiring her legs, her neck and those perky breasts that poked from beneath the thin clothing he had made. One particular day, she bent over to get a fallen book and he stared at her buttocks and the prize hidden between far more than he should have and that stirring sensation returned with more strength. He ran to hide in a closet and stood there, panting, as the pole jutting from his slit dripped a clear fluid over the stone floor until it decided to disappear once again.

He thought he was safe, but each time he lingered when looking at her, that feeling returned and he'd have to hide, sometimes with the most boring book to read and take his minds off her figure with little to no effect. So, he made a decision: he'd stop looking at her and sleeping in the same bed.

Jill noticed this odd behaviour: he stopped hugging her, helping her get to the higher shelves, stopped sleeping with her and chose a stone floor instead. He stared keeping his distance and even his looks, those eyes filled with adoration, became full of fear and worry, the strong arms that used to hold her when he took her somewhere in the far reaches of the library unsteady and trembling. There was something wrong with him, she knew it but he just wouldn't tell her why. She was just as scared of this as he was, equally powerless. Two months after her arrival, the library returned to the silence it had been plagued for two centuries, the two of them barely talking, barely seeing each other. Kal appeared for the meals, made her the best he could and then went off somewhere, running as fast as he could, leaving her alone until the next one, where the scene would repeat itself again and again.

Then, one day, her sheets disappeared, the bed dishevelled and messy, his scent lingering in the air of the bedroom. She huffed and decided she had had enough of this behaviour, storming out of the room, following his scent to get to him. She found him soon enough, hiding in a closet and opened the door: Kal was there, lying on the floor, hugging her sheets as he took deep breaths, inhaling her scent with a need that almost scared her, a red and tapered spear, several times bigger than any her boyfriends had, coating his legs with slimy fluids. It must have been a little less than a metre long, thick as her own thigh at the base. She slammed the door closed, heart pounding like a drum, the sounds echoing in her ears, not sure on what to do, and hope he hadn't heard her or seen her come in. Later that day, the sheets returned, the bed spotless, though now carrying a faint scent she knew belonged to him, musky and deep.

She didn't sleep that night, her mind racing at a thousand miles an hour, always going back to that moment she saw him snort her scent like it was a drug and that spear of throbbing flesh, aching for touch and release. She wasn't happy to see him like this and slowly the pieces fell in place one by one: all the stares, all the touches that slowly became more sparse and awkward... he had fallen in love, but didn't know what to do, and when that love became something more, his body needing to go a step further, and yet he pulled back. The fear in his eyes not because he was just scared of something, but because he had no idea of what to do, like a young boy at the throes of his first love.

Jill's mind went once more back at that scene and this time, all that populated her thoughts was that pole. That memory made her own slit flush with heat.

When had it been the last time she had touched herself, when was her last time laying with a male? Months? Years? Still, all that time without the embrace of another were not gone, merely lying in the bushes, ready to ambush her. She ran a hand on her shoulders, imagining that it was Kal's, no one else's but his, a hand that went lower, caressing her breasts with eagerness, and then lower again, between her legs, teasing her vent. She arched her back as a flurry of sensations wracked her body and made her need stronger, a faint line of fluids trickling out of her vent and staining the sheets.

An idea came to her in that moment: he wanted her scent? She'd give it to him, as much as he wanted, enough to make him spill his seed only with his nose. Never had a kinky idea been this enticing for her and her hands reached for her nether region all by themselves, a lone finger running across her folds and then prodding the inner flesh. She bit on the pillow, stifling a moan. It had been long indeed if a mere finger had this effect, but... if one of her little and thing fingers could do this to her, what about his? Those big and strong hands, exploring her vent, teasing, prodding, soon joined by a tongue much larger than her own.

Jill bent over, her snout pressing against her vent, her own scent arousing for her. She lapped at her folds, tongue plunging deep inside her, another moan trapped in her mouth as she kept going, fingers joining in on her pleasure, acting on their own. Her fluids were delicious and she licked them off her scales, coating her vent in a sheen of saliva. When her first orgasm arrived, several minutes later, her folds quivered and stained the sheets even more than before, the cloud of her arousal impossible to remove now. If Kal were to get in and try to do the same, he'd spill his seed right then and there. The idea stirred her again and she went in for a second time, her fingers spreading her vent wide, tongue lapping and collecting all of her juices, her snout drenched with them and nostrils saturated with her scent. Later that night she slumped on the bed, panting, tired and sore but satisfied nonetheless, her scent permeating every corner of the room.

The next morning, Kal was just as invisible as the day before but when he saw her, she could hear him sniff the air with interest, staying behind just a few more moments. It was something for her and when the sheets disappeared, and the floor showed signs of a very horny male passing through, she knew she had made the right decision. Jill took the drops of pre in her mouth, moaning as the strong flavour bombarded her taste buds and one more decision was made.

Over the following days, she'd pleasure herself in the bed and Kal would steal her sheet in the morning, a cycle of silent perversion taking root in their lives. She stopped bathing, or rather, stopped washing her vent, a weird attempt at drawing him near her, soliciting him to get the scent at its very needy source. Soon, she found herself touching her vent in the middle of the day, soiling her clothes with her arousal, hoping that he'd steal those as well, giving her an excuse to wander naked and dripping. When that happened, she was overjoyed and made sure she'd not wear anything until he decided to take her for good.

Kal on the other end, was even more confused than before: no book could tell him why the female was pleasuring herself in broad daylight, nor why she refused to wash herself or wear clean clothing, no matter how beautiful they were. Her scent was sticking to every surface she touched, sweet and alluring, he could taste it and at this point, his member was refusing to go back in at all, perpetually hard and dripping. Jill noticed the trails of fluids following her and made sure to lick them when she found them, be it on a shelf, a chair or her bed and she knew he was watching her.

Finally, after five days of near constant arousal on his part, almost a week of incredible need and lust, Kal's last barrier broke. He walked slowly, dragging his steps in a vain attempt at trying to calm down as he got closer to her door, a losing battle clearly. His member was speaking volumes, dripping more than ever, aching more than ever. He opened her door and found her in his bed, their bed, snout buried in her vent, pleasuring herself.

She noticed him, standing at the door, nervous and waiting for release like a dam that was way too full.

"So, you finally decided to come. I was thinking I'd have to keep going for another five days." She tried to sound sassy or calm but her heart was pounding just as much as his and her vent ached so much she was hard pressed not to grab that pole and shove it inside. "Come." He made a step forward and then one more, then another, until he was right in front of her, looming over her small figure, the clear difference in size all the more evident now.

"I-I..." He wanted to say something but she took his muzzle and pressed it against her own in his first kiss ever. His mind melted, blank, nothing more than the pure feeling of her lips on his running through it. Lower, his member throbbed and sprayed her in clear fluids, almost bathing her in them, thin strands sticking to her scales and breasts.

"Shhhh, it's ok, we both want this, we need this..." She kissed him again, this time pushing her tongue inside his mouth, wrapping against his. Kal moaned and grabbed her body, hands running all over it, exploring it, feeling every inch he had missed before, making her moan as his hands roamed on her. He had way too many hands for this not to feel heavenly and his maleness throbbed so hard she could feel the blood rush to it, feel it pump pre in quantities even a succubus would find hard to produce.

"I love you, Jill." He stopped as he said that and left her speechless. "I think I do: all the nights I spent with you were the best of my life, all the moments I was not with you the worst, all the moments you stood beside me a blessing. Is... this love?"

"It is, you big idiot... why walk away when you felt like that?"

"I-I was scared, I thought I was sick with some illness not recorded in the books." She giggled. "What?"

"Oh, love is such a bad illness: it makes your stomach flutter, your heart ache and your soul sing when you are with the person you want. It makes your very being hurt when you're not. We could have spared each other so much if you had just... asked." She kissed him again. "Plus look at you... it must hurt a lot."

"It... it does."

"Do you want me to... help you with this?" Kal stared at her, eyes wide, throat so dry it could rival the desert above them and nodded.

She smiled sweetly and moved so that she stared at his member, letting the spurts fall on her head. He smelled so good but what about the taste? She stuck out her tongue and gave the tip a small lick: Kal moaned and fell on the bed, writhing in pleasure, that very tip spurting more and more pre, almost a constant stream. Jill was more than shocked but didn't wait for him to calm down and threw herself onto him, hands running over his length, spreading pre all over it and hugging it, breasts parting as she pressed on it, using her own body as a tool for his pleasure. Kal roared, claws digging in the bed, leaving permanent marks on it, fighting the urge to spill his seed under that barrage of pure, unadulterated bliss and when she put her small mouth over his tip, taking him inside, he lost it. His back arched, his tail slapped around, walls giving in under his monstrous strength, books destroyed and released his seed. Jill noticed the signs of his orgasm a moment before and stopped sucking of his member, stroking his length harder, feeling the flesh throb and harden like steel. The first shot hit the ceiling, three metres above them and splattered all over, followed by a second, a third, a fourth and then more and more and more, his flesh veritably bulging with each load, coating the room and their bodies in a thick layer of seed. He roared and came some more, five straight minutes of pure bliss rocking through his body.

Jill was shocked but didn't fail to reach her own climax, her tail plunging in her vent as she kept licking, sucking and drinking the musk and seed of her lover. Her sweet scent was lost in a sea of male fluids, her entire being coated in the warm stuff, his musk so thick and dense she could taste it, see the haze in the room. Kal was seemingly capable of endless shots, more seed joining the unimaginable amount on the floor, pooling and collecting. As his climax tapered off, the floor was now noticeably closer to the bed, who knew how many litres of essence wasted on it and some more on their bodies or soaking the books and bed.

Kal slumped on the slick bed, panting, drained, and felt her rest against his chest.

"That was incredible." She said, Kal more shocked than she was. He had never come this much before, hell, he didn't even remember coming, period, not after having changed. "You are amazing, Kal."

"Y-you think so?" He opened his mouth to speak and felt that tongue invade it again, now carrying enough seed that a man produced in a lifetime. The taste was weird, hot, salty, thick and with a depth to it and Jill made sure he'd get a lot of it, spreading it around his tongue.

"I am sure of it, Kal: you are perfect, beautiful, clever, handsome, buff and hung more than a horse... I want you to be mine, forever." His heart skipped a beat when she said so and for the first time, he was the one kissing her, taking the lead, pressing her small body on the bed. His member still aching and begging for more release, surprising the both of them a lot. "I see someone wants to have a second round... and maybe a third and a fourth..." Kal slid a hand between her thighs and she hissed, shutting her up like she did before. "Ok, I'll shut up..." He kept rubbing her vent with his fingers.

"Am I... doing good?"

"Kal, honey, you are, oh fuck, you are doing so well... damn... right, right there." Kal lowered his head and gave her swollen vent a sniff, the fruity scent getting to his head immediately even though both were covered in his. All by itself, his tongue lolled out and dragged itself over her slit scales: the flavour of her arousal was addicting and he found himself wanting for more, licking every inch of her with eagerness, desire, need. Jill on the other end was moaning and thrashing on the bed, seed covering her each time she slammed her head on the pillows. It was hard for her to even breathe and not be affected, much less think straight with a large tongue quite literally poking into her egg chamber with little regard for her opinion. "Oh, fuck." She clamped down on his muscle and yelled as a mind-wracking climax sent her straight to heaven and then back, spraying the male busy tongue-fucking her with her fluids, the scent burned in his brain forever. His member throbbed hard once more, showing that he was more than ready to fill her up. Once Jill came down from her orgasm, panting, she looked at her lover and his tool. "Oh, heavens... do it, Kal..."

"Do... what?"

"Put that in me! Now! I need it!" Kal was hesitant, his eyes going from the small and swollen vent and the gigantic pole between his legs. "Just do it! Please... I want it."

"Are you sure? It might hurt."

"I am sure you'll be gentle with me and I am part dragon after all, from my great-great-great-great grandma's part." He smiled wryly and got in position, nervous and hesitant, but her eyes told her she'd be fine if he didn't go all crazy on her. With the two mating organs next to each other, finally, they could see just how much of a difference there was in size and Kal got even more worried he'd injure her even if he were careful. "It'll be ok."

"If you say so..." With slow movements, Kal moved his hips back and lined himself with her vent. With one small push, a small fraction of his length slid inside her, the copious amount of fluids lubing his way in.

Jill bit her lips as she felt how big he was and how much was still left outside but the only problem she might have had was that she could not hope to take all of him, not in their first time at least. Kal grunted, the tightness of her passage clamping on him like a vine, hot and soft, slick with her need, simply the best...

In one slow motion he pulled back and then in again, slowly so not to hurt her, panting as he tried not to go too far. Jill was also in a hard spot, wanting more of it, rougher, harder, but let him go at his own pace. It was his first time probably, he needed to learn how to move.

In a few minutes, long and pleasurable for them both, Kal began to understand what to do better, how to position himself so that he'd hit all her soft spots, what to touch with his free hands, where to kiss her... Jill was amazed at how fast he learned. He was just full of surprises.

He gave her nipples, hard and sensitive, a playful bite, followed by possessive licks and a few words of encouragement as he pushed deeper into her, picking up the pace, no longer a slow tango and more of a messy salsa. She felt her muscle stretch as more and more of his member entered her vent.

"Fuck... go on, I don't want nice... be rough, I can handle it." She spoke in a tone that told a lot about her state of mind and Kal could not refuse her request anymore: he had gotten a taste of heaven when she took him over the edge and now he wanted her to feel the same.

Just as she asked him, Kal grabbed her waist with his lower set of hand and secured her to him, the upper set still roaming on her body, stimulating every inch of scaled skin she had and then pulled her closer. His member caused her stomach to bulge and triggered her climax, beginning to move when she was still squirming, the contractions of her passage only more inviting for him.

Now that he had gotten over his fear of hurting her, the far larger male stopped being nice and thrusted faster inside his mate, each thrust bulging her stomach out and making her squeal in pleasure, adapting to his size by the minute. But no matter what, as soon as she thought she had gotten used to him, more of his member was pushed in, starting the cycle all over again. She came again and again over that pole of flesh, making harder for him not to spill his seed again so fast, his need to breed her second to his desire to make her happy and satisfied.

"Come for me, Kal..."

He didn't need anything more, each of her words his law, his duty. Kal bit her neck, drawing just a trickle of blood in a feral display of possession and ownership just before she felt him throb harder and harder, stretching her even more. Much like before, his first shot had the strength of a bomb, she felt it hit her inner walls and splash inside, followed by another one, her stomach already bulging out rather obscenely, and he had just began, still thrusting in and out of her.

Soon the pressure building inside was too much for Jill to bear and he pulled out, still pumping load after load of seed, now coating her in it. With a titanic effort, he pulled her head to his member and pushed her mouth over the tip, forcing her to swallow the unholy amounts of essence he was putting in her. She sucked greedily, gulping down everything he had to offer, or at least tried to and eventually she had to push herself off his member and accepted the coating of seed he was giving her. Several minutes after he started flooding her egg chamber, the massive spurts became more of a trickle, his orgasm finally abating a bit. The room was now utterly drenched, probably stained forever with his musk and covered in a thick layer of seed.

He slumped on what was left of the mattress and hugged her, his member still spurting weakly but visibly retreating in his slit, having caused enough damage at last. Jill moaned one last time and kissed him again, both of their muzzles covered in globs of pearl white stuff.

"Was, was it good?" Even after all he did, he was still not sure that he had done a good job and Jill chuckled.

"I'll tell you this: normally, a woman is lucky to come a couple of times and today I have lost count way too early. You have been the best thing to ever happen to me, period." His tail wagged happily, causing small waves in the sea of his spent seed, satisfied to know that she had a good time. "Kal, did you like it? Was I good for you?" He looked around. "Ok, I get it."

"You are the best thing to have happened to me too, Jill. As far as I know, you are the most perfect creature in this world and in others." She blushed under that white coat of paint. "You accepted me, talked with me, walked all the way over here to learn and didn't run when I appeared to you. I would have lived the rest of my immortal life without having ever known the happiness that comes from company, love and simply existing. Thank you, Jill."

"You... are very much welcome. But there is one thing that I am not all that happy about right now..." Kal immediately went crazy and apologized even though she had not yet said anything. "Stop it, I meant that I was not happy with the insane amount you just pumped on me. Jeez, calm down..." Jill laughed and it was now his turn to blush, having to admit that he had indeed produced quite a lot of seed. "How is this even possible?"

"Who knows?"

"Did you ever paw off before I arrived here? You know..." She mimicked the action and Kal shook his head. "Not even once?"

"Not at all. I never felt the need for it and I can see that if I had done it even once a month, it'd be a mess to clean."

"Speaking of which... how are we going to clean this?"

"I'll think of something." The two fell silent for a few minutes. "What are we now, Jill? Friends, lovers, casual mates?"

"I was thinking that I'd love to be your mate Kal, you are everything I ever searched for in a male and then some." She rested her head on his chest, feeling the muscle rise and fall as he breathed.

"But... what if I cant give you any eggs? What if we never have children?" She shrugged.

"Well, we first have to try and have you get me pregnant, don't we?" Her tone held lust and desire, Kal let out a throaty growl, clearly interested in her idea. "Not now, though, I am destroyed, in a good way. Easily the best fuck of my life." Pride made his chest swell, her words hitting all the right spots. No male would feel bad when their partner complimented them in such a way.

Exhausted and satisfied, the two fell asleep in each other's embrace. Kal was happy, more happy than he'd ever been, finally with someone by his side, ready to spend her life with him. The thought that she could not live as long as him was a great pain in his heart but their relationship had just started, there was still so much to do and things to learn. He'd have time to figure something out.