Project Tooth and Claw Pt. 1

Story by Lithier on SoFurry

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#1 of Project Tooth and Claw

Now here's a theme I haven't visited on for a while :3 Last time I touched on such things was with the Somersworth Incident. It's a pretty tricky thing, considering how much I rely on trying to be "realistic" in my writing style --exploring the details and workings of every moment-- to try and describe things like transformation and fitting huge things into some poor little normal-sized body. I'll be working with that a lot in this series, and I expect to learn a few things along the way. Hope you enjoy! :3

Myrilla has been invited to inspect an incredible new discovery-- but the real discovery may be in her...

Myrilla is (c) Myrilla

Story belongs to Lithier


"Wait, wait," the leopard half-shouted to be heard over the chopper's beating blades, grinning incredulously. "You mean the big new plan to beat the Russkies, our new secret weapon," she made a dramatic chopping gesture, "is supposed to be... dragons?" She glanced around the cabin. "How long has it been since a recorded dragon attack? Like, three hundred years?"

"Two hundred and thirty-eight." Myrilla didn't shout. The blue canine sat back on the opposite bench, looking at the floor.

"What?" The leopard leaned forward, re-shrugging her rifle when it started to fall off her shoulder. She hardly seemed to know how to carry the thing.

"Shut up, Lewis!" The rabbit at Myrilla's side slouched in her seat as much as she could in her harness, scooting her rear toward the edge. "Just... shut up." She rubbed at her head.

Looking around the open-air cabin, Myrilla's escort didn't inspire much confidence in her. She'd been surprised there were so many women in the squad, and she'd hoped to get along well, but... these weren't exactly the strapping young models of American patriotism she'd come to assume was protecting them from the Red Menace.

The rabbit next to her seemed to be going through some personal crisis, assuming she wasn't always... well... a bitch. Across the cabin, the young colt sitting to one side was clutching to an air sickness bag-- she hadn't even thought they'd have those on military helicopters, but he'd known exactly where to find one. In the middle was Lewis, the leopard frowning silently at her now. And next to her was the most uptight vixen Myrilla had ever encountered-- she might have been more the kind of soldier she expected by the way she carried herself, but every time their eyes met, she gave Myr the worst stare until she finally averted her eyes. Myr didn't have anything to prove, and she didn't know what the fox's problem was. And then there was the wolf sitting on Myr's other side. Ms. Tremic. She didn't look at Myr with hatred-- she didn't look at her like a sentient being. She'd been the one to invite Myrilla on this little expense-paid trip, but Myr was getting pretty mixed feelings about being involved with whatever the wolf was working on.

She cast her gaze out the gaping side of the helicopter, surveying the thick forest rolling by beneath them. If it really was a dragonhome they'd found out here, buried in the South American jungle, virtually intact...? It'd be amazing just to-- just to see it. With her own eyes. She squeezed the camera hanging at her middle. Photographic evidence would launch her name into the spotlight of the archaeological forums. She scanned the horizon, craning her head around, trying to spot the mountain. Who was she kidding? Anything would be worth it, if this was the real thing. If.

When they finally began to descend, she gave a heavy sigh of relief, flexing and stretching her legs. About damn time. As they were unstrapping, though, the gray vixen barked, "five miles to the North. Box it up, safeties on."

Myr's mouth hung open. "Five miles?! Couldn't we have landed closer?"

Ms. Tremic took her by the arm, and Myr followed her off the chopper before she was dragged off. "We land where the ground is clear enough, Dr. Winterbeau." Her smile was cold. "It's a lovely day for a walk, though, don't you think."

It was true that the weather favored a walk-- the clearing was bright under the late morning sun. As she stepped away from the chopper, she found herself surrounded-- her and Ms. Tremic walked together, with the four armed troops arrayed around them. Surrounded by armed soldiers in camouflage, however poorly trained they may have seemed, she felt rather odd walking around in khakis and a matching hat, toting a bag and a camera. She almost looked like a tourist, especially compared to Ms. Tremic in her fine suit. That didn't seem appropriate garb for the jungle, but Myrilla was beginning to suspect the wolfess didn't wear much else. All in all, they made a strange group entering the jungle.

"Is... all this... really necessary?" Myr gestured to the soldiers with a small frown. "I know this is a government operation, but I mean, it's just an historical site, not a battlefield."

The wolfess smiled with what might have been a sliver of humor. "Dr. Winterbeau, this is not American soil. Our stepping foot on this ground is not an entirely simple matter, politically, and considering the potential strategic value of our findings here, we don't care to take any chances." Her eyes narrowed a hint, regarding Myrilla as if she might be chancy herself. The dog frowned, and swallowed. This had better be the real thing, or she was going to... well... she probably wouldn't do much more than crawl back to her apartment and get liquored up until it all went away, but she liked to think she'd do something about the wolfess' attitude. She turned her attention back to avoiding tripping over the roots jutting up in the middle of their rough little path until the leopard up ahead broke the silence.

"So but, I mean, they're all dead, aren't they? The dragons?" She glanced back, looking quite confused. The rabbit behind Myr gave a heavy sigh, and she glimpsed the young horse rolling his eyes.

"Probably." Myrilla glanced around, uncertain if she should encourage the leopard, before continuing. "We don't know for certain-- it's possible that there are still a few in hiding somewhere. We'd thought they went extinct in the 1500's until the encounter at Berlin. Nobody knows where that one had come from, but we're still searching, even today. There's a lot of parts of the world it's hard to search thoroughly that a dragon could theoretically live in." She paused to duck under a massive log, almost crawling at one moment. "But we're not expecting to find anything alive today." She shot the wolfess an uncertain glance, hoping she was right about that. "Just a dragonhome-- a structure created by the dragons in ancient times. It could contain artifacts of their culture and knowledge from millennia ago."

"Right, right..." The leopard brushed aside a draping branch. "So but, what's so important about that? I mean, sure, it's good for fossils and stuff, but why should we care? What good would it do against Russia?"

Myrilla smiled a bit wryly. "Nobody's entirely sure why the dragons died out." Gods, if there were fossils, she'd kiss that frigid wolf. "If there was one thing the dragons had, it was power. Incredible magical prowess. Ancient knowledge of the workings of the world. If we could recover a fraction of what made dragons the undisputed rulers of Earth for untold eons, well... I'm not a military strategist, but I imagine we could deal with a few communists."

"You realize we have briefings for a reason, right?" The rabbit called past her irritably. "Christ, Lewis, learn to read."

"Those things are written like textbooks!" The leopard huffed. "I've never been a good study. I just need somebody to explain it to me and I get it, that's all."

"Lewis. Hastings. Traps shut and feet moving." The vixen ended the conversation suddenly, and Myrilla was more or less happy for it. She hadn't been looking forward to the two arguing around her head, and she was starting to have a hard enough time keeping up without wasting breath explaining half their mission at the same time. She didn't really think she was out of shape, but trudging through miles of rough jungle was quite a jump from writing papers and visiting digs conveniently accessible by road.

They were kind enough to take a break when she started falling behind. A log made for a decent bench while she had some water, and she was a little surprised when the colt sat next to her. She blinked, and after a moment, offered an uncertain, "hey."

He glanced at her deliberately, and answered with a very nonchalant, "hey." He then proceeded to look the other way, apparently ignoring her for several minutes until she finally shrugged and rose. She was in mid-stretch when she felt a hand on her rear. She stuck an instant, then turned, mouth open, brow lowering, to find the horse already walking away. She glanced around, and everyone else seemed to be occupied with their pouches or watching the trees. She closed her mouth, working her lips in a deep frown for a moment before drawing a deep breath. Right. The dragonhome.

It was a long slog, and she'd considered undoing a few buttons in her shirt several times as the midday heat set in. She didn't particularly feel like putting on a show for any handsy young men, though, and she made do fanning herself with her hat. Her fur was growing sodden, and she panted constantly against the heat, rather annoyed that Ms. Tremic next to her kept her mouth firmly closed, apparently unaffected by the heat even in her dark blue suit. When the vixen heading up their group called back that she'd sighted their destination, her knees weakened a moment with relief before her second wind hit her. This was it. The dragonhome! Her stride widened until she was nearly stepping on the heels of that overly inquisitive leopard.

The swell of a small mountain darkened the sky ahead through the canopy, the rough outline slowly imprinting on her retinas piece by piece as she stared, tripping repeatedly and barely caring. The trees were thinning ahead, and boulders passed on either side as they approached. Dark stone peeked through the trunks. Suddenly, when a gap opened in the canopy, the mountain jumped into view above them-- including the top of a massive obsidian arch, squared at the corners. Her mouth fell open, and she gawked openly as they cleared the last few trees.

"Oh... my... gods..." she finally breathed words, stumbling up to the ramp-- a massive slab of obsidian, fifty feet wide and longer still, sloping subtly down into the soil and up into the archway-- it must have been almost a hundred feet high. She could scarcely imagine the creatures so huge as to need that kind of headspace, though she had been studying them all her life. To see it all in person put these beings of legend in dazzling perspective. "It's... huge... enormous!" She laughed despite herself.

The vixen in the lead turned and shot a hard gaze at her. It was the leopard that spoke, though. "Is it bigger than the others? Is this their capital or something?" She glanced around at the forbidding pillars of black stone adorning either side of the entrance ramp.

"Well... no..." Myrilla frowned thoughtfully. "It's a little small, actually. It's just... amazing seeing it in person, you know? This must have been a mixed dwelling for land-based and flying dragons. The entrance is at ground level, but they have a landing stone." She squinted at the sparse engravings on the pillars. Not much new there, but there might be more inside. Maybe she'd discover a new letter in the draconic alphabet!

Turning fully, the vixen cradled her rifle, legs set wide. "You haven't inspected one of these sites before? I understand there have been at least three sites in similar repair found so far."

Blinking, the blue canine dropped her gaze from the pillars. "W-well, no... we haven't really had the funding for overseas trips, permits and all that... It's kind of a small department." She smiled sheepishly.

The vixen's gaze snapped to Ms. Tremic. "This is your 'world-class expert?'"

"You've never even been to one before? Why'd we bring you along, then?" The leopard took on a haughty air, apparently convinced all of a sudden that she was better than Myr.

The wolfess rose her paws, making soothing gestures as the soldiers stirred and muttered. "Dr. Winterbeau is a multi-specialist with exactly the qualities we need for this endeavor. I have every confidence that for what she lacks in experience, she makes up in potential." She gave another one of those soulless smiles. "I assure you that we have taken great care in our selection process. Now, please, escort her inside. I'm sure she'll be demonstrating her value on this expedition shortly."

The leopard's eyes were already glazing over. The vixen simply listened, eyes hard and cold. When the wolfess was done with her buzzwords, she shrugged and turned, gesturing the team to carry on. Myrilla hesitated at the edge of the ramp, standing on the soil just short of that monstrous slab of dragonwrought stone, simply considering it in reverence. When she stepped onto that hard surface, she felt a chill for a moment, running up from her feet, up her spine, till her ears popped up atop her head, nearly dislodging her hat. She laughed again, quietly, adjusting her hat as she climbed the easy slope. Her fur was standing on end, and her heart was racing. She thought she could feel the heat of the stone soaking through her shoes. A real dragonhome-- and she would be the first to document it.

That thought brought her paws up to fumble at her camera-- she'd better do some documenting! She'd have to remember to get a distance shot on the way out, but for now, she took snaps of the pillars as they passed behind them. Remarkably undamaged for such a hot, humid climate. The ramp had a fascinating texture to it-- the dragons had worked the obsidian into such perfect shapes despite its brittle nature. Not that this was normal obsidian, of course-- the dragons used some kind of magic to shape and reinforce the stone, maybe even to create it in the first place from magma. It was stronger by far than its mundane counterpart, and at times the way it reflected light seemed to change subtly, to shift about. The stuff was eerie just to look at, and walking across this dragon-sized platform was like walking on the surface of the ocean-- frozen in place, solid under one's feet, but... it still seemed to ripple just a little in the light.

That chill of wonder in her gut was slowly crawling into her throat as they approached the archway itself. Coughing softly, her eyes blinked and flared open in the gaping darkness of the home itself. Inside, the sunlight picked out a thousand glittering edges of obsidian blocks and carvings in the blackness. They would have to put up flares, or floodlights. Did they bring flood--? She gasped suddenly as she stepped onto the level stone of the entryway itself. Something was wrong. It was-- hard to breathe. Her paws rose to her throat as she stumbled.

"What--?"

She crumpled to the floor, one paw landing on stone-- and her arm was surging with painful heat. Fire! Fire was crawling through her arm, into her heart. She rasped, and the world rocked, her balance thrown around. In her every vein, it burned, it charred her muscles under her hide, and she was one with the horrible fire. Her clothes were too tight-- tighter! She tore at her trappings, claws seizing into fabric and rending it from her hide. She could feel the heat, but it was her-- she was a bastion of fire against a world that was much too cold. Such heat. It felt wonderful, a churning, bitter fire in her belly.

Her shorts tore away, and she cried out, a thick, guttural sound of relief as she swung free, her suddenly throbbing arousal flinging to high attention, dribbling with excitement over the sensations rolling through her. Her mouth cracked open, and she exulted in the heat, she let her joy pour from her very core-- and it was fire.

Fire blazed through the air, a great wash to light the archway for one glorious moment in brilliant orange and yellow, miles of obsidian cast in regal, glowing beauty, the glory of fire seeping across every edge to gild those slick black stones. When the fire faded into a cloud of smoke wafting skyward, her delighted eyes turned downward to her companions-- down, and down. They were rather short now. Crouching in awe before the beauty of her display? No, they stood... but the tallest, the vixen, who for once wore an honest expression of... surprise?... stood no higher than the tip of one of her own breasts, and they hung heavy on her now, swollen perhaps with the fire coursing through her. She drew a deep breath to admire the swell of her own bust a moment, and smoke curled from her nostrils.

More importantly-- smells filled her nose. The world was opened up suddenly-- she'd always had a decent sense of smell, but this was something else entirely. She could smell the age of this place, and the fine musk of dragons long, long gone, soaked into the stone. The creatures scattered across the ramp --four? Had they lost one?-- were a strange little medley of odors, but one almost stung her nostrils. The rabbit-- how had she not noticed earlier? She reeked of estrus. The rod between her legs gave a thick throb in answer, and a hungry smile split Myrilla's face, baring massive, predatory teeth. She snatched up the rabbit in barely a blink, and suddenly, she was screaming, and everyone was screaming, and guns rose, and the stinging! Like a swarm of horseflies! Myrilla roared, and with a swipe of an arm and a tail, the others were sent flying into the brush.

Then it was only her and the rabbit. Hastings? The name flitted through her mind in a surprising moment of clarity. She smelled... Myrilla growled through a smile, planting down on her rear with her toy bunny. The heat pulsing through her was putting her every strand of fur on edge, her nerves were electrified, and arousal consumed her-- her body was, in this moment, a font of pleasure, and her cock was the fountainhead, throbbing hungrily, drooling thick, creamy globs, brilliant gold veins pulsing up the rich blue of her flesh. Her paw shook, just barely large enough to hold the rabbit tight in place as she wriggled about and cried. She pressed the rabbit snug alongside that shaft with a low growl, just the sensation of touch enough to send waves of pleasure through her swollen shaft. She must have been overengorged with this heat-- her rod was nearly as long as the girl's arm, and several times thicker. The rabbit's expression had been one of abject horror at first, but as she soaked in Myrilla's juices, bathing in her musk, she seemed to be tasting a little bit of the joy that seared the insides of Myr's brain at this very moment.

She raised her bunny toy, arm trembling a hint, and pressed a claw to those little camo pants she'd wrapped herself in. One crook of her finger, and the front shredded open, half a scream bursting from the rabbit as she shivered. Now Myr could smell the thick of her arousal, her womanly need to be bred. A low groan, a thunderous sound of oak bending, rolled from the canine as she lowered the rabbit's crotch to mash it against her tip, fresh, fat globs of precum instantly soaking her crotch, washing up her belly and spilling down her legs. The rabbit's head fell back, her arms blindly fumbling downward, straining to reach over the fiery canine's single thick thumb, to try and grasp at her own sex through the shreds of her clothes. Her own moans were the chirpings of a bird against the heavy sighs winding from Myr's lungs as she settled back, rolling her hips to point her rod straight up at that tiny target hidden between the rabbit's legs.

Drawing a slow, deep breath, shuddering with desire, the canine tightened her grip on the horny, squirming lapin and firmly pushed her down. A moment of strain-- and her tip slid to one side, grinding up that fluffy white belly to leave a thick mat of sex juices. Lifting the rabbit again, she wiggled her around on the tip of that cock, the brunt nuzzling into the insides of her thighs even as she spread herself, panting and begging in words that didn't seem to mean anything. Another shove, and the rabbit screamed out desperately-- before that tip finally scooped up between her cheeks and along her back. She was too slippery, and the hole too small! A thick snarl of frustration tore through Myr's neck as she raised the rabbit for one more try.

The hunger. She burned for this, to be inside this creature. It was everything she needed, she was sure it would sate the seething hunger of the flames inside her. Not the rolling flames in her belly, but lower, in her very core, the flame that gnawed at her, that made her paw twitch tight around that sweet little morsel of rabbit flesh. She turned that terrible fury, an energy as sure as fate radiating from her, searching for a channel of fulfillment like the charge of a lightning bolt about to strike. That was what crossed between them-- her very hunger seemed to connect the two of them for a moment. She thought there might have been tiny tendrils of light between her own throbbing flesh and the bruised loins of that rabbit-- some kind of tingling, miniature storm on the narrow horizon between flesh and hide. She felt something... drawing at her. Myr's tip lodged deep between those lips, catching in that tiny, nigh-unfindable hole that was her true entrance. The rabbit's exultant moans agreed with her instincts, and her entire body flexed with readiness.

Down. In a blink, the rabbit's sex strained, surging up, then out, bulging obscenely around the mass of a pillar of flesh, drooling and twitching against her stretched insides, and burrowing deeper. The rabbit didn't look fat, or pregnant-- her hips were molded around that cock, from her lips up to the broad head jutting past her navel. The rabbit was screaming and moaning in turn, one flowing into the other as her body was molded to Myr's purposes. Somehow, this unnatural stretching, the conversion of this very coherent structure of bone and muscle that was the rabbit's body into an amalgam of yielding tissues, not breaking but submitting to the crushing pressure of that cock, this miracle of magic over physics didn't even surprise Myrilla-- somehow, it simply seemed right. Destined. It was absolute fate in this moment that she would shove her dick into something hot and wet and satisfy her aching needs, and the lightning of absolute certainty had landed in the ready soil of this body. Myr pushed, and the rabbit gave way.

Her mouth hanging open, a gaping maw of fangs stained with char, Myrilla gave a thick groan of pleasure, her body rolling to shove her hips up as she hauled the rabbit down. In an instant, the rabbit's ass was planted on the broad seat of two basketball-sized, white-furred testicles, and the full length of that rod was straining through her warped body, pulling her hide up taut from her belly in a jutting tower of flesh that confronted the stunned rabbit at eye level. Shock seemed to have seized the little fucktoy for an instant, and she stared in silence, mouth hanging open in mid-moan, as that massive cockhead visibly throbbed through her hide, the white fluff of her belly pulsating wider a hint, and bulging at that pointed tip each time Myr pumped a fresh wad of precum into that massively stretched cunt.

The pressure was maddening and wonderful. Myrilla could feel the protest of that tiny body, she could feel it trying to reassert itself as a cohesive mass, to crush her, to force her out. Every inch of her dick was wrapped skintight in that sweet pussy, her every ridge and vein creating a contour in that pink flesh. She gave a subtle roll of her hips, and she could feel the drag across every last artery at once, her copious juices lending a sweet slickness to the cutting friction of extreme pressure. This moment, completely buried in this rabbit, was a moment of profound clarity for Myrilla. A moment of satisfaction the likes of which few can hope to experience in all their lives. And that was just the first stroke.

Her breasts swelled up as she dragged in a fresh breath, fires stoking and glowing up the back of her maw as she throbbed with desperate need. The pull was sudden and awkward, the rabbit's body snapping almost back to normal, a rubber band forcing back into place. She popped off almost entirely before Myr could even stop her-- just barely keeping her head wedged between the rabbit's poor, liquefied hipbones. And she thrust. And she thrust in again, and again, suddenly desperate, straining that rabbit's belly out toward the sky over and over. It wasn't as satisfying-- every stroke only filled her with hunger for the next, to shove in faster, harder. She slammed the rabbit violently into her crotch, shoving choked noises from the rabbit, whose eyes stared at nothing as her body was violated. Wrapping both her massive paws around her toy, Myr set to jacking herself off feverishly, almost seeming childish despite her towering stature.

Barely moving but to throb needily, that monolith of dog dick was a creature of two skins-- under those rapidly moving paws, it alternated between glossy blue chased with jagged lines of gold, a romanticist's lightning storm in a bottle, and a thick fur coat, a blur of white that ballooned around that rod to slide down to the hilt each time before whipping up again. Even when she fumbled and that poor rabbit snatch popped off entirely, reverting to a mortal body once more, showing little more wear than a grotesquely gaping cunt, lips ruffled from their rough duties, when those paws dragged her down the two were inevitably drawn together again-- her lips always managed to land square on that massive cockhead, kissing the tip to her hole to blow wide open around that battering ram of meat all over again.

Myr's mind was a firestorm, seething and swelling against the inside of her skull with every moment. At the same time, she ached with need for more, ever more, every stroke ingraining in her the disastrous need for a thousand more, but every flick of flesh across flesh, every beat of her heart, every throb against those thin-stretched walls was more than she could take, an overwhelming crush of pleasure. Her balls churned heavily on the cool stone, ready to burst at any instant, yet she seized down on herself in desperation, certain that she needed more, that that which was to come would be a thousand times better than even that which scorched her nerves out of her hide now. And it might well have been true-- every stroke seemed to be more intense than the last, her cock growing infinitely more sensitive as her cum factories flooded with her load, her orgasm becoming a mysterious creature, caught between present, future, and past. Her paws shook and curled around her toy, her arms closing in, and she smothered the rabbit in her breasts, hips jerking desperately, body arching over and over as she crammed her dick through that tight cunt and into her own cleavage. That pressure-- the crush of her heavy tits around that distended cunt, and the sudden wash of all new pleasure from her breasts at the shove of that cock between them, crushed everything under a rolling wall of fire. She was cumming. Maybe she had always been cumming, but now-- now everything burned, her every nerve, the world, the sky and the sea, for one moment, she could swear it was all wondrous fire.

Her head whipped back, and she howled, but what came out was flame. Her balls pumped, and the bulge between her breasts fattened suddenly as gallons of seed flooded that strained womb, the pressure of her cleavage pushing it right down to gush out of the bunny's desecrated cunt in thick, sloppy, noisy washes, coating the canine's balls and the stone below as she pumped in more and more. Slowly, she shoved the girl down, pinning her tight by the arms as her hips rocked to crush the girl's spine with her hunger, her belly a rapidly expanding balloon around the rod that was her cock, the shape becoming indistinct as thick washes of spunk pushed her womb into a more spheroid shape. Her cock was nearly lost in the great swell of that belly at the last before the cum pouring from between those strained lips finally started to outpace the pumping of her relieved orbs. Gradually, that massive dog dick came into vision, a roughly cylindrical shape with a single point distending that cum balloon into an oblong shape. Myr took her time admiring her thoroughly-bred mate until she finally seemed to stop leaking, the seal between their sexes reforming.

The draw sent a shiver through her-- she was more tender than ever, and she fought down the momentary urge to thrust in all over again, just to see how obscenely, painfully wonderful that cunt would feel now. When she finally popped free, the sight of the rabbit's body reforming into a decent, humanoid shape was jarring-- it was odd to look at her toy like a living thing that actually used its legs to walk around and such. Her cunt still hung open, spunk pouring from between her lips in thick glugs as her belly gradually receded.

The haze was fading-- the rest of the world was returning to Myr now, and something was wrong. Many new smells. Metal and fuel. People. She turned, and her eyes widened.

Tanks. Troops in heavy armor. The landing platform was surrounded. And they were all oriented on her. Her teeth set, a snarl swelling in her throat, but the fire in her belly was low. The seething heat had finally passed, and she felt... tired... but she had to-- she had to protect the temple. That word didn't seem right, and she didn't know where the thought had come from, but she knew she needed to banish these intruders. Snarling, she bounded toward the interlopers, fire surging from her maw.

Darts --great syringes, half a foot long-- blossomed in her arms, in her breasts, stung at her face. She flung her arm up, screeching, and something punched her in the gut. Sudden, searing pain coursed through her, radiating erratically from that wound, and her muscles were rubber. She tore the spear from her middle, trying to haul at whatever was on the other side of the wire, but it seared at her again, and she threw it aside, slobbering and moaning. She couldn't see. She-- she was blind! She tried to charge forward, but her face hit stone. She crawled, and a net of heavy chain landed atop her, pinning her in place. Shouting, and things stabbed through the net to shock her again. Stabs in her arms sent creeping numbness up her neck, and she was gone.

Apart from everything, lost in the cold weight of her own flesh. Dark images trudged through her mind, of slithering creatures, of the sway of the world, and there was an ache. Pride... and shame. Death gnawed at her heels, but somehow, by some tiny clawhold, she claimed life again. She... would live again, and it would be glorious.