Dare to Drink

Story by skiesofsilver on SoFurry

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A story written as part of a Secret Santa event I ran on my discord server. This was written for TayohShadowind. Thanks to Unsavoryrepute for editing assistance!


"Dare?"

Newly brewed potion in hand, Drift glanced around, but the anthro dragoness could find no sign of the dragon in the kitchen or the adjacent living room. Shi frowned. Where was he? He was usually lazing about at this time of day.

"Dare?" shi called again, but there was no response. The dragoness shrugged and turned to the fridge, opening it with hir free hand. Shi was about to place the potion in the fridge when shi hesitated. Shi wondered whether shi should leave a note for Dare...but no, he knew hir business and plus there was a note on the potion! "White Dove O," it said obviously enough on the tall bottle. He shouldn't need any more explanation for that or why there was an enchanted gilded cage currently in the living room. Hir customers had preferences and shi didn't question, only happily provided for their desires. Of course, she didn't intend on selling this potion until shi figured out the reversal.

"Dare?" Drift called one more time. Shi shrugged, then peered in the fridge. "Well, I'm going out for some milk! I'll be back." She paused. "Don't drink the damn potion, ok?"

Drift closed the door with a self assuring nod. A verbal and written warning should be enough.

Should be.

*****

"Drift?" Dare murmured, wandering into the kitchen. The shirtless anthro dragon rubbed sleep from his weary eyes. "Drift, I think I-" He yawned. "Overslept. Did you make any..." He glanced around the clean, empty kitchen. "I guess not. Urgh. I'm always the one to make coffee."

"Drift?" he said, a little louder than his sleepy mumblings. "Are you even here?"

He turned towards the fridge. Perhaps she had left a note? But no, there was nothing there, just the usual ancient fridge magnet advertisements and a lewd message spelled out in magnetic letters. Dare snorted and shook his head, before he opened the fridge. He didn't care how Drift took it, but a little milk and creamer did coffee a lot of good.

Dare immediately found his gaze drawn to the bottle that sat in the middle of the fridge's lowest shelf.

"White dove zero," he read, reaching out and picking up the bottle. He turned it over in his hand, watching as the fizzling liquid sloshed within. It seemed carbonated and the name sounded like some kind of energy drink. Was that what it was? A new energy drink? White Dove 0, like zero calories? It made sense to Dare's still awakening mind and what better way to feel more awake than consume a copious amount of caffeine - or at least what he hoped was a copious amount. There was no nutritional information on the bottle, only the note of its name. Drift had probably picked it up at one of the markets of a strange friend. Shi did know some...interesting characters.

With a shrug, Dare slammed the fridge shut and then twisted the top off the bottle. Thirstily he gulped down the liquid, tasting fizzling, yet oddly light sweetness. Before he knew it, the drink was spent. He slammed the bottle down on the counter and then let out a satisfied belch.

"Oh yeah, that's the stuff," Dare sighed, smiling. "I'll have to ask Drift where I can get mo-"

The dragon's stomach gurgled and he frowned. He rubbed at his bare abdomen and afterwards let out a less satisfied burp.

"Urgh," he groaned, leaning back against the counter while he continued to rub at his stomach. "Maybe that wasn't the...stuff?"

He paused, for his fingers on his stomach did not simply feel his belly scales. Instead, there was a slight softness to them, a bit of fluffiness that was there that hadn't been before. He looked down and then yelped, suddenly wide awake. He flapped his wings in surprise when he saw that there was a patch of soft whiteness sprouting from his belly, hardly mindful of how his movement had knocked the bottle off the counter.

"Ah!" he squealed in a tone much higher than his usual rumble. He pulled his hands away from his stomach only to notice with horror that the invasive snowy down had spread to his arms, the fins aligning them beginning to shrink away.

Down! That's what was spreading over his stomach and arms now, soft, slight fuzzy feathers that were happy to subsume scale. Feathers - he was growing feathers! White feathers that continued to spread up with a slight tickling sensation up his stomach and over his arms, white feathers that sprouted from his sides and now his shoulders, white feathers like a-

"Dove!" he shouted, his tone still shrill. He frowned and placed his hands on his muzzle. What was wrong with his voice? No, what was wrong with his snout? His gaze went crosseyed as he stared at his snout, the scales of which were peeling away in favor of a smooth, salmon-colored hardness. His nostrils flared and then were covered over by that hardness. He opened his mouth in surprise and almost immediately his jaws felt lighter and lighter by the second as his sharp teeth one by one began to fall out while that salmon stiffness spread to the interior of his snout. His forked reptilian tongue flicked out and then shivered as it shrank, no longer forked, and certainly shorter with every passing moment. Glancing down, the dragon blinked when he saw some of his teeth lying at his feet, along with a few scales as well.

"Wha-?" Dare said, or tried to say. It was getting harder to speak with how his snout was hardening and reforming, its reptilian cast becoming slim and short. More concerning to the prideful dragon, however, was something else shrinking atop his head. His horns were retreating into his skull while the spined fins that ran down his head folded and disappeared into feathery softness.

"Nuh-no, not my horns!" he said, reaching his hands to tug at said shrinking horns. The dragon's efforts were without success, especially when his hands cramped and contorted. One moment they were completely capable of dexterous movements; in the next, they were stiff and unresponsive, no longer meant to grab, but then meant for what? Dare didn't want to guess, yet deep down he knew what his hands were becoming, especially as thicker, longer feathers started to spread out along his arms.

"B-but..." he squawked, struggling with getting that one word out of his shrinking, hardened snout. "I...alr...edy...'ave...ings!"

Or did he? Those wings that flapped frantically behind the dragon with every panicked moment didn't cease their movement, but merely shivered and then began to pull into the dragon's aching shoulders. He shook and whimpered as he felt his wings withdraw while his arms converted to nearly the same thing, though slightly and wider. He still held onto the nubs of his horns until they retreated entirely and then his useless hands that weren't quite wings and wings that weren't quite hands rested upon his shrinking, reshaping cranium. The changing dragon stood still, or as still as he could with the changes wracking his body as he tried to figure out what to do. He wasn't sure, but he had to do something!

"-rift!" he called. "Drrr...ft!"

Damn this...damn this beak! Dare squawked indignantly as he spun around, swaying dizzily on his feet from the motion. He groaned and shivered, both from the sensation of those spreading feathers and also because he felt as if several large invisible hands were pressing on him from all angles. He snarled, or tried to snarl and fight back, but there was nothing the changing dragon could do as he slowly shrank and compressed, smaller and smaller as mass seemed to vanish into the aether, though there were parts of him growing as well. His neck thinned and stretched somewhat longer while his arms did likewise to grant him more of a wingspan for the bird he would soon be, an avian, a dove, and not a-

"No!" Dare screeched. There was something he could do - the bottle. It hadn't contained nutritional information or the implication that it would turn its drinker into a dove, at least as far as he could recall, but perhaps there were reversal instructions. Drift usually provided them on her potions, and this certainly seemed like one of her potions!

Dare looked at the counter, or really he looked up at the counter for now it was taller than him and taller with every second. No, he was getting shorter and smaller and would probably get smaller still if he didn't do something about this! He flapped his wings and managed an awkward hop enough to see that nothing was on the counter. Of course, he must have knocked it off in his earlier, er...current panic.

Dare hurried around the counter, or at least tried to. He made only a few stumbling steps, arms awkwardly outstretched from his sides before his legs cracked and contorted. He let out a squawk and landed on his knees, pants slipping off and back to leave him nude. His tail lifted high and heavy while he tried to unsuccessfully push himself up onto his feet, an action made more difficult by his hips widening and reshaping, the breath forced out of him as his chest compressed. He gasped and whimpered when he looked over his slimming shoulders and saw his thick, draconic toes dwindling into smaller, daintier avian talons with salmon scales. He groaned as his bones continued to crack and thin in a way oddly pleasurable and a little painful while those strong, invisible hands continued to press down on him, especially on his tail.

The changing dragon couldn't help but whimper again when that stiff, upheld tail began to dwindle, white feathers spreading over its shrinking length. He whimpered, and yet there was something pleasurable about letting go of all that weight, of letting that thick tail become a fan of soft tailfeathers. Shrink, shrink, shrink while something grew, grew, grew between his legs. Dare felt his face go hot and he let out a coo as he looked down and see that his dick was poking out of the slit of his now feathery groin. It stood stiff and ready and he almost reached a more wing than arm now to touch it, but then his proud draconic shaft began to shiver and shrink and it wasn't simply withdrawing into his slit.

Dare tried to say something, anything, but all that came out of his snout...no, his pinkish beak was an avian squawk while his masculinity dwindled. More disconcerting was the sensation of his other hole shifting up, closer and closer to his genital slit before the two began to merge into what could only be an avian cloaca. Dare meant to whimper, but what came out was a dove's coo, because that's what he was becoming: a dove...and a female one at that.

The bottle! He...she...he had to reach the bottle! He flapped his new wings while what remained of his old ones melded into his feathered back and disappeared, the more-bird-than-dragon managing to get onto his feet, no, his talons. He stood unsteadily, the stance familiar and yet alien. More disconcerting was how short and small he felt, no, was. He barely reached up to midway up the counter and that was changing by the second. He screeched and then started forward, his head bobbing in avian fashion as he moved. His wings too were tucked to his side and that felt natural. Right, even, though he did remind himself that his wings should be on his back and not his arms! He would have frowned, but his stiff, hard beak kept him from expressing any such emotion. Instead, he simply cooed and rounded the corner of the counter, doing his best to ignore how he was closer to the kitchen tiles than the top of the counter now.

On the floor on the other side of the counter was the bottle and it was large, enough so that no longer he could simply fit it in his hands, if he'd had any. The dove awkwardly ambled over to it and let out a distressed hiss, for every step seemed to give him less and less distance. He was shrinking still and the avian shivered as he felt his insides churn. Now though, he was at the bottle, the counter looming over him. He squawked and peered down at the bottle, tapping it with his beak as he searched for anything on it, any hint for how to turn a bird back into a dragon.

But there was nothing.

No, not nothing. There was the words "White Dove 0," but that didn't help him at all! He knew what he was now!

Annoyed, Dare kicked at the bottle with his talons and only managed to get it to roll a little away while he fell onto his tailfeathers with a surprised squawk. Cooing softly, he hopped back to his feet and flapped his wings. Well...what now? He was a dove. no doubt due to Drift's machinations. Not that shi had planned for this to happen to him, but shi could have warned him at least! Honestly, who kept their transformative potions in the fridge and didn't make coffee. If he had arms, he would have folded them, but for now Dare had to be content with waddling forward grumpily while his head bobbed to that avian beat.

Drift, he thought while he wandered out of the kitchen. He had to find hir and-

The dove came to an abrupt halt as he noticed something shiny in the corner of his vision. He turned his head and saw that there was a gilded cage in the living room. What was it doing there? And why did it gleam so brightly, so enticingly to his avian eyes?

Crrrrrreak.

As the dove stared at the cage, its door opened up as if inviting him and Dare did indeed feel drawn to it. A golden home just for him, a place to rest his wings and shed his feathers. He wanted to fly to it now, to see what it felt like to be kept in that cage. Except...

Except he was a dragon, a strong, heavy humanoid reptilian with scales and a tail and wings that didn't preclude the existence of arms, thank you very much. He was a dragon and yet not one at the moment. He was a dove, a female avian, a light bird full of flight that very much wanted to see what it was like to stand in that cage. Some part of him knew that there was a glamour on the cage, that it really wasn't as inviting as it looked. But he couldn't shut down that bird brain of his, anymore than he could ignore that sudden aching in his belly and how he was starting to feel a little nauseous. That's just because he wanted to fly, right? Fly right into that cage?

Why not?

He flapped his wings experimentally even as that feeling of nausea worsened. He hopped and suddenly felt a little heavier. Why? Because he needed to fly?

Yes, he needed to fly. Fly to that cage, so that he could nest.

Before Dare could comprehend the full implications of that thought, he had hopped and flapped his wings and just like that he was aloft, soaring upwards towards the cage. Except it wasn't a graceful flight at all, the dove having to flap his wings more than he thought he should, though maybe that had something to do with the growing weight to his form, that not-so-slight swelling of eggs, the heft of gravidity overwhelming her slight, light current form.

Eggs? Dare squawked. Gravid! But-

Though it had been a struggle, the gravid dove landed within the confines of the cage. He only had a moment to register this fact before the opening he had flown through click shut. The bird blinked and then hopped around, caught in the cage and with a few obvious egg bumps to his avian form. He shrieked, hopping around and flapping his wings even as that warmth in his womb intensified before an egg dropped down his oviduct. Her oviduct, the dove spreading her talons, tucking her wings into her side and lifting her tailfeathers as instincts came over her. Dare could not quite comprehend what was happening, but the dove was ready as that egg, the first of many slowly started to descend from her inner passage, each pulse and push sending a shiver of pleasure and pain through her finely feathered frame. The female avian cooed, the egg descending lower and lower before it finally crowned, Dare realizing just what was going on as she tilted her head and stared at the ovoid slowly, pleasurably emerging from her cloaca. She chirped and let out a cooing sigh as the egg dropped onto the floor of the cage, the wet ovoid rolling slightly away. The dove shivered and then quivered as the next egg set into place. She stared at the egg and cooed softly, proud and ready to lay more.

"Dare?!"

The dove blinked and then looked up, squawking at both the sight of a reptilian face peering into the cage and the sensation of the new egg crowning. The bird blinked away and then let out an embarrassed coo when she recognized that draconic visage.

It was Drift!

"Dare, is that you?"

The dove squawked and then shuddered as another egg rolled out of her wet slit. Another was already on the way while Drift stared at her with annoyance and then amusement as hir eyes followed that rolling egg.

"Oh Dare, you idiot..."

Dare tilted her head. Hey!

"You drank the potion, didn't you?" Drift shook hir head. "Of course you did. Why? Why would you do that?"

Dare tried to muster a response, but anything avian that came out of her beak was cut short by the sensation of her laying another egg. She looked down at her gravid form. Just how many were there?

"Oh, you idiot!" Drift sighed. "That was for...well, it doesn't matter anymore, but it wasn't for you! And now look at you! You're a dove." She smirked. "A cute dove, but you don't know what you got yourself into, do you?"

The dove squawked indignantly even as she pushed the fourth egg. Of course she knew!

"Did you read the label? The O was for oviposition and the customer was really into that. Really into that. Ugh..." Shi groaned. "I'm going to have to help you out, aren't I. I don't think that cage can hold a hundred eggs."

Dare cooed in confusion.

"Um, yeah. And you know the worst part? Or..." Drift shook hir head. "Maybe the best? The reason the customer didn't have the potion yet was because I haven't devised the reversal yet. So yeah. I know what I'm going to be doing after you're done laying."

Dare froze. Stuck, like this? For how long? Drift seemed to read her mind as shi smirked.

"Don't worry," shi said. "It'll only be a few weeks at most. Oh, and a few thousand eggs, maybe. That form is set to cycle every few hours. Don't worry, don't worry - I'll help. If you weren't so cute right now, I'd be more mad. You do make an adorable dove, Dare. Maybe an even better dove than dragon!

The dove flapped her wings and screeched.

"I'm just kidding, dear. Anyways, what is that...your fifth egg?"

Fourth, actually, the former dragon shivering as it dropped from her slick cloaca. Dare stared into Drift's smug snout as she realized she had a very long, very eggy road ahead of her.