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The fall was much shorter than he was expecting. After a second's slide, the muscled walls slid tight around, the environment amazingly cramped compared to the spaciousness of the mouth. His feet stopped and then began to slip quickly down, compressed on all sides by slimy walls around him. It felt like he had fallen into a crevasse. The flesh, so heavily muscled that it was more irresistible than quicksand, drew up around his waist. The rhythmic motion pulling him ever downward. Suddenly, the whole world shifted. He felt jostled by movement apart from the steady downward drawing action of the throat. The lantern, trailing in his hand behind him must have gotten some saliva in it, because it chose that moment to sputter and go out. The slick wall pressed hard against his face, there was only one breath left on the side of his head before the walls closed completely around him.

Time seemed to stop. It was the most frightening thing he had ever known, but the feeling, the warm compression all around him, was somehow ancestrally calming as well. "So the dragon had lied after all." The knight thought as he held his breath. "After all that. Well, I'm more the fool for going in then." His thoughts were strangely peaceful as he accepted his death. "Still better than shoveling horse shit."

There was another convulsion, more jostling, as the knight's lungs began to burn. Suddenly, there movement besides the pulsating walls compressing him. Around his head, the walls opened and a great gout of relatively cold air surrounded him. The convulsion happened again and yet more air was pumped down to the tiny human sliding down the esophagus of the great dragon. Eight more times, a dozen, he lost count the dragon continued swallowing air for the intrepid human. "I remember the old ways. This is how we helped each other." The dragon spoke over his shoulder. "I told you, you would not die."

The knight sped along down the slippery tunnel surprisingly fast. It felt almost like tobogganing down a hill and Michael realized that the dragon must have lifted its neck high to speed his journey instead of relying on peristalsis. The journey ended with an explosive splat and the knight was ejected into open space. The air was foul again, but the opening behind him continued to noisily admit bursts of air. It felt like the chamber he was in was expanding from all of the air being pumped in. He reached for his charcoal mask, but stopped when the air became at least tolerable. It was velvet dark, but luckily his lantern was still in his hand and the knight had a generous supply of quick-tinder.

The opening quit spluttering and closed tightly with a thin whine. "There. That's all I can take in. Try to be quick and don't light your lantern too much." Said the voice in his head. The quick tinder lit with a passion in the fumes and it was all the knight could do not to burn himself as he shoved the little burning mass into the lantern. It took and he turned it down as low as he could without it going out. It gave off a dim yellow glow that a candle with have been ashamed of, but it was better than using up all his air.

The chamber was more expansive than he thought, it was the size of the great throne room in the mayor's magnificent keep. Though he doubted anyone would be particularly fond of his room, it was round, and the air was damp and hung around him like a glove, pressing his ears as much as the walls of the sac he was in. Huge boulders littered the "floor" here and there, but there was only a few. The muscle on which he stood, at least was still, only tilting slightly to where the boulders sat in a ditch. The little stream of smoke from his lantern reminded Michael that his time was limited and he moved forward. However, the thought that he was now completely enveloped within a dragon the size of half the town stunned him with awe. It was then that the opening behind him admitted another occupant.

His horse slid down and collapsed at the base of the opening, either dead or unconscious; Michael didn't particularly care which. The voice spoke again, "I hope you don't mind, I haven't eaten anything in a month and you didn't seem very attached to your horse anyways." Michael snorted, the dragon was honestly amusing. He would be the subject of drunken bar stories for all time if he managed to ever get out alive. "Also, if you could, would you drag it down into the stomach. I coughed up all the pebbles out of my crop earlier; they would have crushed you otherwise."

Michael rolled his eyes at the light talk of him being crushed to death inside a dragon's feeding tube, but he didn't waste his breath talking to a voice that wasn't really there... or everywhere rather. He decided to raid his saddle for supplies, which were scarce since he had left most of them at the mouth of the cave before descending to lighten up his steed. There was some dried meat, a pouch of water, more oil for the lantern, and a few other essentials. The knight noted that the cup holding the poisoned spears had been torn from the saddle. "Clever dragon. Down here, they might have simplified the entire situation."

As if following on the heels of his thoughts, however, the dragon spoke to him, "Don't get any funny ideas about slaying me from inside, alright. You might be able to, granted, but my body would become your tomb, and no glory for you."

Michael simply frowned. What the dragon had said was obvious, especially given the now virtually solid wall of muscle which was the opening he had passed through; though it was a disturbing thought that the dragon might indeed be able to read his mind. Do doubt the dragon was too thick to cut through in any direction given the limited time he had. The chamber was large but would the air last even a day? In fact, the chamber seemed smaller now, though not actually small in any sense of the word. "The air must be passing down lower into the next chamber.

Michael began to pull the slime covered horse along the moist floor of the chamber when he noticed something that had been lying under the body. Michael grabbed it as soon as he realized what it was: his sword. Fairly useless when fighting a dragon, Michael had left it strapped to his saddle, forgotten until now. He unhooked it and attached it to his belt. With his wide shield strapped over his back, Michael felt less like a bumbling fool as he dragged the still horse past the boulders to the other side of the dragon's crop.

The passage narrowed again, but the air was passing in a steady stream deeper into the dragon. He didn't fancy crawling through the little tunnel while trying the drag a horse behind him so he got behind and pushed the slimy beast forward. The passage was longer than it looked and it was so small that Michael had to crouch to walk. Pushing the horse was easy with the pressure of the wind behind him constantly blowing from the pressure of the crop and it whistled around the edges of the horse's torso.

About half an hour of tedious crawling and shoving later, Michael started to feel a steady vibration in the ground and walls around him. His lantern showed only the puckered walls of the passage forced open by the air, not the pulsating action of the esophagus behind him, but about every minute the vibration occurred again and it grew louder as he journeyed onward.

Later, Michael stuffed cotton wads in his ears from his little first aid kit to stifle the noise. Boom... Boom... BOOM... BOOM!... it went, shaking the entire tunnel every time the pulse sounded, like a band of war drums perfectly synchronized a little bit faster than every minute. The sheer force of it was enough to knock him to his knees if he didn't pause every time it occurred. It was a while before he realized it was the dragon's heart beat.

"Amazing isn't it?" commented the dragon's voice suddenly and Michael started. "I can't imagine what it's like... traveling inside me" The dragon imparted a sense of wonder and perfect calm about the situation, but Michael was not in the mood for idle banter.

He was wet from head to toe, his boots were filled with slime and he had encountered a wide variety of the most toxic stenches imaginable within the last two hours. "I can imagine," he jabbed, "You're wet, hot, dark and extremely smelly inside."

The dragon didn't respond.

The heart drums sounded again and the floor shook. Michael planted a hand to steady himself against the wall. He looked down and, unbelievably, felt a little guilty. Imagine that, guilty for being rude to a dragon who has just eaten you! Nevertheless, he was a proper knight and chivalry was as high in the teachings as riding a horse and using a sword. "Ummm... your heart sounds very nice... errr... and healthy." He ameliorated.

The dragon responded immediately, "Oh thank you. I do usually take good care of myself. It's important for older dragons you know, to get out and stretch your wings at least once every couple years. If I just hadn't needed to settle in this cave..." The voice trailed off and Michael got the feeling the dragon didn't want to share something with him. But before he could ask about it, the horse gave way under his hands and fell forwards with a splash; the tunnel contracted slightly as the plug of the horse was expelled. The air in this new chamber was even worse, might not even be breathable without the charcoal absorbing many of the potentially toxic substances. The relatively fresh air continued to pump into the new chamber, but this one dwarfed the previous one by a score, it was like he had entered some sort of strange new country, it was the stomach.

Michael remembered the bloated abdomen of the enormous dragon, like a golden cliff side. Actually being inside, despite all the intermediate flesh of the dragon between its skin and this particular organ, Michael had seriously underestimated the sheer scale of the dragon. This stomach was literally a world unto itself, symbiotic with the dragon. Amazingly, there were things to see without aid of the lantern, which was just as well since its light would not have reached the ceiling, which was like a painted sky over head. Streaks of reds, blues and turquoise lit the perpetual night, glowing from where they grew on the walls of the stomach which itself was like a vast shallow sea. Mounds of pink flesh rose here and there like islands and in other places, the juices formed deeper pools. Things loomed in dark as shadows against the soft glow of the walls and floor. Parts of buildings, statues and bones... so many bones. Most were small, but some were too large to be real; a rib cage that could have housed a large family? And on the same thought, the bones of the dragon had to be exponentially larger, these were nothing but leftovers to the thing that had devoured them. He tried to imagine the dragon feasting on the denizens of some ancient city but couldn't; he failed to even imagine it moving. "How could something be so large and still be alive, more than that, a being and a rather interesting character at that?" he asked himself

The young knight stepped down, splashing into ankle deep liquid, luckily his boots were tall enough to keep his feet only sticky. "Also," Michael thought, "If this is the dragon's belly, then I probably don't want to take a dip in this stuff."

"Don't worry." Said the voice on his shoulder, "I have very slow digestion. Just don't plan on spending the holidays in there."

Michael coughed into mask, "I couldn't spend the day in here. Dragon how am I to cross such a distance when the very air is poison? I can hardly breathe and I am standing here in the breeze of the opening."

"Oh, I forgot that Lord Gareth failed to teach you anything important about dragons. Hunt for a clear jelly-fish like thing on the walls of my stomach and wrap it around your nose and mouth. You'll be fine for days."

More than the description of some mysterious jellyfish, Michael was stuck by the last word of the sentence "Days?" He was expected to stay in here that long? He shuddered and resolved himself on moving forward across the expanse as swiftly as possible. He opened up his lantern a little more since, hopefully, he would soon have a new source of air. As he explored, his dragon hide boots splashing on the spongy material of the stomach, he thought of something else the dragon had failed to mention. "Correct me if I am wrong, but your stomach isn't supposed to be so... - large just failed to capture the emotion - expansive, right?"

"Right, but it is just the build-up of gas that is hurting me so. The problem must be below... or further on for you." Chimed the voice in his ear.

His original plan of questioning derailed, "Did Lord Gareth make it this far?"

"Of course, he wasn't an idiot you know." Said the dragon happily, apparently oblivious to the implications.

"Did he discover what the problem was then?" Michael prodded.

"Well..." said the dragon hesitantly, "No. He was there, past my stomach, but he stopped speaking to me before he said what the problem was. He thought he was close though." Added the dragon as if afraid of discouraging Michael in anyway.

Luckily, for the dragon at least, Michael had long since realized he was in too deep to quit now. The air seemed to claw at the insides of his lungs as the passage into the stomach continued to shrink, the passing air started to whine. Finding the jellyfish thing started to seem more like an imperative as the knight explore around the edges of the deeper pools in the stream of air emitted by the crop. Still the implications struck more soundly as he looked out across the sparkling constellations of the stomach, the fact that the whole town, but not the surrounding country, could have fit snugly inside here. It was going to be a two day journey at least to the other side, considering that he was moving on foot and more slowly than that for the pervasive fluid. "Lord Garreth was alive until just recently, wasn't he Dragon?" Michael asked while the air was still tolerable on his stinging lungs.

"Well... He..." the voice stammered. The knight began to think the dragon wouldn't answer as he continued to search. Suddenly, his lantern fell upon a wide pool of briskly swimming... things. There was no creatures on the outside world that could be related to these strange swimming creatures... and most of them appeared to be made out of jelly. He found a long bone and began to poke around in the pool, the creatures didn't seem to mind, looking for a clear one. The Dragon finally deigned to answer, "There was nothing you could have done, Michael. He stopped speaking to me well before dawn."

Michael's grip suddenly tightened on the bone and he slammed it into the juice pool, spraying a shower of hot fluid over himself and scattering the denizens of the pool; it tingled where it contacted his skin, like strong vinegar. If he hadn't been so damn... cowardly... If he had set out the moment he knew something was wrong... he might have been able to save his mentor. His teeth ground together, furious with himself, but he managed not to yell. The whine turned to a whistle and the air became even more potently fumigated. And there, near the bottom of the pool, a clear jelly affixed to the stomach wall; it pulsated and emitted small bubbles frequently. Michael had to dive in to his waist, but came back to the surface clutching his prize gently in the palms of his hands. It was firmer than it looked and hand many long tentacles at the bottom.

"How... does it... work?" Michael gasped, pressing the charcoal into his face.

"Press the belly to your face and wrap the tentacles around your neck." Said the dragon calmly.

Michael did what he was told and found clean, if sour air flowing into his lungs again. He breathed deeply. After wiping the stomach juice from his face, leaving the skin red and raw like a sun burn, he shouldered his gear and set out to cross the massive new country ahead of him.

The previously omnipresent heart beat grew softer and Michael was amazed at how quiet it was inside the dragon, though everything seemed to flow in time with the steady pulse he continued to feel in his feet. The red and green constellations formed swirling patterns over head as served to point out distant landmarks ahead, brighter where the juice was deep, dark patches were dry havens. After an hour, Michael paused and took the jelly from his face to drink a sip from his water sack, important now after all. He held his breath and then replaced the jelly. He wondered. "Dragon, how can it be that such a thing exists that would allow a human to traverse within a dragon?"

The dragon seemed to think long about the answer, but it answered fairly quickly. "Like I said, humans have been our surgeons since time immemorial."

He wasn't very satisfied with the answer, but Michael suspected that the dragon itself didn't know either. At any rate he was feeling generous with healthy and fairly stink-free air flowing into him again. "Like dragons used to be our gods in time immemorial?" asked Michael playfully.

"The boy remembers!" the dragon said joyously, "So Lord Gareth did teach you something after all eh?"

The mention of his deceased mentor soured his spirits again and Michael didn't respond, instead trudging along, picking a path across the driest folds of the dragon's stomach.

Even with the jelly, the trek wasn't easy. Deeper into the bowls of the dragon, although he hadn't actually reached the bowls yet, there was more strange fauna. Colorful swirling disks zoomed by in a swarm and then collided wetly with a dry hill of stomach wall where they began to pulsate as they fed on whatever grew on the walls of the dragon's belly. There were even fish, lots of different fish ranging from tiny to the length of his arm. All of them had huge blind eyes and pale reflective scales. Fungus, perhaps transplanted from the outside colonized "dryer" regions of the clammy environment, especially around the ruins of the consumed buildings. Most were little more than piles of broken stone, but, as Michael grew weary and longed for a place to catch a few hours rest, he came across a sturdy block of a building. Broken pillars were scattered around in front and on the stone walls was a Greek bas relief depicting a great winged figure looming over a massive battle of human warriors below. Inside was bare, but blessedly dry. Despite the apparently featureless single stone room, Michael could tell it had once been a temple from the incense holders on the walls and the huge stone altar at the back. Michael walked in, his wet boots still splattering on the stone and climbed the stairs, finding readily a small priest's chambers.

He stripped and set out the clothes to dry as best they could in the clammy air. He spread his bed roll on the stone bench and lay naked upon it, it had been tightly curled and was the one thing he own that had not been drenched, it was a blessing in his strange country. His mind wandered to the images on the front of the temple. "Dragon, why would you eat the temple of those that worshipped you?"

The voice chuckled and the building shuddered as the dragon physically responded as well, "That actually belonged to the other side. They said I was a demon and tried to slay my followers. You do not know how wearing it is to fight some new petty human war pretty much every year, but I did my duty to them and destroyed the 'heathens.' I finished by consuming that temple whole on top of a thousand warriors... I slept for two months afterwards."

Suddenly the dragon's stomach did not seem like the peaceful haven it had been. He changed the subject, "What happened to them?"

"Who?"

"Your followers."

The dragon sighed, "The same thing that always happens to good people, they get slaughtered by people with bigger swords."

"You let that happen? You're invincible."

"I appreciate the sentiment really..." There was a low groaning and the ground shuddered, the building rocking slightly back and forth from outside movement. If the dragon was having its painful gas again, Michael was thankful to be so protected on the other end. The voice continued calmly, "But that was an age ago, I was younger... and much smaller. But even now, look where I am, hidden under the earth, alone. There is only so much a dragon can do against the relentless surge of humanity. It doesn't matter how big I am. Ultimately, as much as I never would have guess it myself, your kind is the one that has won."

Michael closed his eyes and pondered for a long time on the dragon's words. Since a child he had never seen a dragon as anything more than a nuisance, a kind a vermin that needed to be destroyed where it took root. Only now did he realize the position of power that ideology implied. It was so obvious now, dragons lived in constant fear of humans and their relentless expansion. They were banished to the remotest regions and their numbers continued to dwindle while people like himself, like his teacher, hunted them relentlessly with a single minded hatred. Was it possible that he was the monster and this magnificent wonder of the world was the victim? That would require a great deal of thought... And so Michael drifted to sleep breathing deeply into the jelly on his face.

He awoke stiff (in more ways than one) and itching on his arms and face. He controlled himself and didn't scratch. Instead he took the salve from his first aid kit (an extra big pot for burns!) and rubbed it liberally on his burning, itching skin. His cloths were stiff with the gunk that had dried into them, but they were manageable. He had slept for only a few hours and hoped that he could finish his task and escape the dragon before another day had passed.

When his feet left the stone and touched the pink surface of the dragon, it spoke, "Are you awake? So soon?"

"Yes I am. I have to admit you are prettier on the inside, but I'd just as soon not build a house here."

"Funny you should mention that, there was a man, once, a burglar actually, who stole a very important object and fled to the one place I couldn't reach him."

Michael's mind made the connection, "No... here?"

"Yes. He had read about the ways to survive in a dragon's belly. He held the artifact ransom for fifty virgins. I had to swallow every one of those poor souls to appease the faithful before he released the artifact. He built cottages on stilts out of wood, which I also had to swallow. He ate the fish and stole meat from the livestock I ate... and he screwed a different woman every night for as long as he lived."

"Lucky man" thought Michael with a grin. "And how long was that?"

"Eighty-two years."

Michael couldn't stand it, he burst out laughing. He laughed so hard he dropped his jelly, but it didn't matter, the story was so ludicrous, and yet so understandably male, it baffled logic and the knight had no choice but to believe. He picked up his jelly, it was beginning to dry a little and continued to chuckle as he walked.

Michael could not help but imagine what it must have been like to live under those alien swirly stars. Again, the idea repeated in his mind, this was a whole different country. Who would want to spend their life here? Was the initial response, but there was serene beauty to it all. Creatures swam and flew here without benefit of the sun, feeding instead on the things the dragon dumped into its belly or the dragon itself. It also occurred to Michael what a remarkable safe place this was. There would never be foreign invaders, no holy crusades here, no conquests of death. He was safe even from the dragon, if his story was even remotely true. Michael could understand the appeal even if he didn't think it was quite worth wearing a jellyfish on his face for the rest of his life.

Hours passed and the great walls of the dome came closer. Like a cone, the stomach narrowed to the far opening... and the end of his journey, well almost the end. Michael hoped desperately that the problem lay closer rather than farther away, he did not fancy having a deeper look at the ultimate end for the dragon's foodstuffs. When he found the opening at long last, he saw wretchedly that it lay under the surface of a wide pond. He rested for the better part of an hour, eating the rest of his food that would be ruined after spending a while in the acidic juice. When the time came, he rubbed down his face and arms with his burn ointment, not knowing how effective a protectant it would be, and stuffed his leggings into his boots. He left his bed roll and back pack behind, taking only the things that could be strapped to his belt or hung on his back. He gathered himself for the dive.

He flew out into the pond and landed with a great splash that sent the dragon's intestinal denizens scurrying away. As he shoved himself through the last sphincter, he heard the dragon say, "Be careful."

He had to wriggle like a worm for an undeterminable amount of time before he was released of the muscles' strangle hold on his body. The jelly, at least, continued to function as well under water as above. The burning, it turned out, was a negligible factor. When he passed through, the fluid on the other side was as mild as sea water. Michael had been worried about finding his way in the dark, since bringing the lantern had been an impossibility, but that too was a fairly moot point. The glowing fungus or algae or whatever, grew even more lushly here and on almost every surface. Michael began to swim.

The tube began smoothly enough, but after passing through another small opening, luckily not as tight, he entered a forest of wavering fleshy lumps. It reminded him of thick summer grass that grew at the bottom of the river, the long pink pods bent in the direction of the current, always forward, wavering slightly. Michael hardly had to swim anymore, the fluid was moving briskly. The passage was dizzying, the pink fingers grew on every surface, and thanks to the fluid, he had no indication of which way was down. He would have developed vertigo had not the dark spot appeared only a few minutes into his journey.

"I see something," said the knight into the soft flesh of the jelly, "A dark spot on the wall of your innards."

"Carefully, Michael, that is the last thing Lord Gareth told me about before he stopped talking."

Michael gulped involuntary and he would have started sweating were he not immersed in fluid. He grabbed onto a pink finger at the edge of the dark spot, it was perhaps two body lengths across and half of one tall. He explored mostly by touch. He found dead withered fingers and pulled out easily clumps of what could only be dried blood. There was definitely some sort of disease at work here. Pushing his hands deeper against the surface, far too soft compared to the firm, but yielding wall of the healthy intestine, he found the slit. Traces of dark fluid flew out into the current as soon as he stuck his hand inside. "Sorry." Said Michael.

"For what?" asked the dragon, and the knight was surprised that it didn't know with whatever otherworldly powers it possessed.

"I think I made you bleed a little."

"That's fine if I bleed." Said the voice more anxiously than he would have thought now that the knight was in a real position to do damage to it if he pleased. "If there's something stuck in there, you need to pull it out. Or you might need to cut away the dark zone entirely if it's diseased."

The thought of cutting away twelve feet of diseased flesh made Michael's stomach churn in a way it hadn't since entering the dragon. He reached in more forcefully, praying to god that the dragon had simply impaled its intestinal wall on some old lance or something and that he could at last go home. He stuck both his hands in... and something caught them.

Michael tried to fight it, but he was immediately pulled in to his shoulders, more dark blood, black in the gloom spurted into the intestinal tract. The pulling slacked and Michael worked at pulling himself out of the slit with just his legs. He only freed his head before the pulling returned full force and pulled him inside.

It was utterly dark now and hot. Michael was aware he was traveling remarkably fast in a narrow passage. The air from the jelly tasted like copper and rust. Suddenly he was bashed against the wall of his new tunnel and his shoulder flared with pain. He wanted to cry out but daren't loose his jelly now. The flood slacked again and he floated dazed. It was almost a quarter minute before he realized he wasn't blind. There was a glowing slit ahead of him, outlining a recent wound in the artery. "Lord Gareth!" he thought frantically as he swam one armed forward. He would only have one chance before the heart pushed him too far downstream to return. He pulled out his sword and impaled the wall, this time the voice in his ear did give an audible groan, but the current returned with vengeance.

Michael dug in with his sword and held on, but the current was blasting right into his face, he felt the jelly slipping off despite its firm suction and the grasping tentacles. He had to cover his mouth with one hand, holding the jelly firmly in place, the current threatened to tear the sword hilt from his grasp... he slipped a little. And then the artery wall gave way, ripping down the old wound. Michael found himself pouring out into a new space. Surprisingly, there was real air here. Though it was dark, he could feel the dragon blood showering down behind him. It seemed a torrent, but the dragon reminded him that there was a lot more where that came from. "Worry about where you are now." The voice said in a tone that was not quite as friendly as when the knight had been safely confined to the intestinal tract.

Michael realized that he could be literally anywhere in the dragon's body for all he knew. He groped blindly, stumbling often for the surface of the new area was covered with dense, squishy folds. His hands collided with something hard and smooth beneath a thick fleshy layer. He reached his hands around as far as he could reach, the surface seemed to curve away gently and Michael imagine a giant round river rock coated in flesh. A kidney stone?

Michael described what he was touching to the dragon.

The response shocked him, "Get away from there!" the voice bellowed.

Michael was thrown to the ground as the whole chamber shook violently. His face pressed to the ground as the dragon rose, when it stopped he rose head over heels and flopped onto his back, his shoulder felt as if it were speared again.

The dragon spoke again and the whisper words, which weren't whispering now, were echoed by far away thunder, "Get out of there now or I will destroy your town!"

Michael lay dazed with pain. What could it be that could have angered the dragon so? Was it something he wasn't supposed to see? Was it something Lord Gareth had seen?

He didn't have time to think long on these answers for something completely unexpected happened. A thick gout of flame erupted in the velvet black. Only his honed reflexes saved Michael from being mortal burned, but in the flash he saw what he had been cradling in this palms and understanding flooded him. Before him, illuminated in a flash that would remain with him the rest of his days, were over a dozen eggs, all of them spider webbed in strands of flesh and partially submerged in the flesh of the chamber; each one was about the size of a privy shack and contained, Michael supposed, a single precious dragon hatchling. Michael could not help but grin as he rolled away from the flames; this enormous creature beyond imagining, a whole world within the world, was a mother.

The realization did not stop Michael from trying to survive, he saw the thin flesh peel away from the partially submerged eggs, leaving the white shell gleaming... and perfectly untouched. He managed to run and avoided another gout of flame from his unseen adversary, taking shelter behind a huge egg. The fire shriveled the folds of the chamber wall and floor and turned them bright red, the area contracted convulsively, almost bringing the ceiling down upon Michael there was a roar of pain transmitted from another world.

"No, stop what you're doing! Please!" There was desperation in the dragon's voice, in her voice, that made Michael's heart ache in pity for her. But there was no time for an explanation. The knight steeled himself and, hoping desperately that dragon eggs were as tough as they looked, slammed his arm against the smooth surface. His fighting arm snapped back into place with a click and another gout of flame passed all around him, cooking the spider webs off the un-hatched egg. He reached instinctively for his sword, but he had nothing at his waist. He searched in vain for it, the room was once more pitch dark, and the fire did not return again. Whatever it was, was waiting for him to leave his shelter. Michael took a deep breath and drew his boot dagger as well as his clumsy apprentice fire shield, somehow still slung over his back.

The fire came immediately as he left the edge of the egg, but the shield took the brunt of the flames as he moved across them; he kept his heat low and his tall dragon boots protected his calves and feet below the shield. Still he thought his hair was smoking afterwards. Moving to the shelter of another egg, Michael immediately dived for a third, not giving his opponent an opportunity to corner him again. A fourth egg, a fifth, luckily for the dragoness, she did not seem to feel when the pink spider webs were burned away.

The sixth time he dove, Michael was not so lucky, a tongue of flame licked up his back scorching away his plain linen shirt and causing blisters to erupt all along the back of his left shoulder. Michael hardly cared, he'd been burned before and now he had what he was wanting. The sword gleamed in the remaining firelight from his right hand.

Now that he had his weapon, Michael began to make his way forward, still leaping from egg to egg. It was easier to protect himself with the shield facing his enemy, though it began to glow behind the steel skeleton by the time he reached the foremost line of eggs. The last gout of flame finally revealed his enemy.

It was a young drake, though not one like Michael had ever seen before. For one thing, it was misshapen. Its belly was enormous, whether obese or just shaped like that he couldn't tell. The wings were stunted, hardly more than a drape across its back. Its legs were bowed out, clutching onto the folds of the inside of its mother, more like an alligator than the sinewy, feline grace of a proper young drake. It's eyes were bulging and blind like the fish and most importantly, a thick cable the width of Michael's thigh connected the drake's over large gut to a nearby wall. "The damn hatchling never left his mother. This is what's causing all her sickness.

Michael opened his mouth to explain, 'Dra-" was as far as he got before another burst of flame flowed around the eggs, so intensive and prolonged his arms began to roast from the heat as tongues licked up from the curves of the egg.

"No!" a new voice in his head commanded, "You no tell Mama."

The knight's heavy heart filled with pity for the degraded creature even as he began to sweat from the heat. His jelly felt like it was beginning to dry out and the air didn't taste so good anymore. Michael wondered how the drake's flame was so accurate if he was blind from a lifetime spent in confined darkness. He took an empty pot from his first aid sack on his belt and tossed it a short distance away to the side. The flame immediately turned and scorched the ground. The dragoness groaned again and the chamber began to rock back and forth as well as up and down. Michael was suddenly fearful that the dragoness was going to make good on her promise to destroy Heartford. He longed to speak to her, to explain, but there were more pressing matters.

The hatchling obviously wasn't very mobile, if he could just get close enough... He took the pot of burn salve and rubbed down his face again as quickly as he could, he couldn't take the time to treat his shoulder, one last time and tossed out the left side of the egg a moment before he charged out of the right.

His ploy worked... but not quite as well as he had hoped. The flame turned yet more of the dragoness's insides birght red, but the malformed drake's ear twitched towards the running knight as suddenly, Michael was sent sprawling by a whip lash from a thick, but still very long tail. It knocked the wind out of him, but he rolled to avoid another tail bash from above. The drake reached with his claws, but the hatchling seem only able to move bare inches from where his belly was planted firmly on the ground, held in place by its own weight.

Michael was panting hard now from all the acrobatics, but he dove again to avoid the tail, he had the advantage now over the immobile hatchling. "Should have thought about that before scarfing down all of Mama's goodies, huh you fat bastard." He thought with the rage of battle upon him. Michael jumped and swept his blade down on the drake's bloated side, the edge cut deeply though the untested scales and bit down into the pink fatty flesh underneath. The drake kicked out with a leg, but Michael danced away, escaping with only a shallow cut on his thigh. The hatchling squealed like a stuck pig and flapped its tiny wings uselessly in agony of the relatively mild wound. Its tail lashed about in every direction except Michael's. The knight took the opportunity to stick the point of his sword into the fatty ribs of the hatchling. He was seeking a gap between the ribs when a voice spoke over his shoulder. "Please don't kill him." It pleaded, the voice seemed on the verge of tears.

"He's killing you! And all your other eggs!" Michael shouted.

"He's my son, he just doesn't understand." The she-dragon begged, it was a horrible reversion of their positions of power, him the blood soaked monster, her the mother begging for the life of her child. "Please don't kill him." She repeated.

The drake took the opportunity to grab Michael about the waist with a clumsy claw. He squeezed horribly and without the protection of his heavy armor, the claws punctured his side where they met Michael screamed into his jelly, not caring if it fell off now.

A loathsome grubby voice sounded for a second time in Michael's head, "You no hurt Mama no more. I live in Mama forever." Never mind all the burns he had inflicted on his mother just now.

As the immature drake was squeezing the life out of him, it occurred to Michael what was really the struggle here, the drake was refusing to grow up, no matter the cost. And suddenly, the most irreparable wound he could inflict on the drake was made clear. Pain racked though the knight's body, but he managed to raise his sword arm for the final blow. The hatchling laughed in his face and raised his own meaty head for the counter. Michael flung his arm down and the sword flew from his hand. It flew true, slicing through the umbilical cord that had forever connected the hatchling with his mother.

"No, No, No!" shouted the simpleton's mind voice again and again. The hatchling dropped Michael and struggled with his bulk over to where the sword lay impaled in the flesh of the dragoness's womb amid the ruins of the hatchling's only source of sustenance.

Michael was still struggling to breath, but he crawled a safe distance away from the sobbing lard dragon, and said, "Time to grow up kiddo."

Then suddenly the walls began to pulsate around the knight. The once roomy chamber contracted again, but this time the walls did not retreat. The pressed closer, tighter as the muscles contracted around him. More slime, thick and greasy, welled up around him, washing away some of the blood. The smell through the jelly was peculiar, but also unmistakable. The knight groaned as he realized what was happening. He prayed that they were still underground where no one would see the epic conclusion of his adventures within the mother dragon. It didn't take as long as the passage through the esophagus, but the passage was narrower, and painfully tight. It constricted the jelly to his lips, making it hard to breathe and pined his arms and legs together as he was pushed out head first into the first daylight he had seen in two days.

His face brushed against grass, and the sunlight was blinding. A colossal amount of blood streaked fluid gushed out behind him and the knight struggled away to a nearby tree and leaned against it as he purged himself copiously on the forest floor before passing out.

When he awoke it was after noon. He still lay on the forest floor and he heaved his battered and burned body up with difficulty. His clothes were stained beyond recognition and literally falling to tatters off his body. But that didn't matter. He stood in what he took to be the shade of the hills, but he was forced to sit down again when he saw the truth.

The dragon, or rather dragoness, reclined on the hill containing her hidden home, spread out in all her glory. Her golden hide, though still dull in comparison to her old beauty, still managed to shimmer with the millions of reflected pin points of the breastplate sized scales; it seemed a mountain of gold had fallen to earth, one the breathed and whose head rose far above the scatter flights of birds fleeing her presence. She dwarfed the great hill, resting her upper body on it like a throw cushion. Again, he was struck with the image of the whole town fitting inside her vastness. Though, perhaps not now, the swelling had gone down a great deal on her torso, leaving baggy skin hanging in folds across her shrunken abdomen. She was enormous, she was beautiful; if there was a goddess in the world he desired, it was this dragon before him.

"Thank you so much for helping me and my son," said a quiet and much more feminine voice beside the young, battered knight. He grinned and noted the tiny bloated mass still bawling in the sunshine by one of the dragoness's rear claws. His glance did not go unnoticed, "He will be fine... in time. He just needs some fresh air and sunshine... and to lose a little weight..." A smile spread across the jaws of the dragon far, far over head so that her face was hazed like distant mountains; it was still no less beautiful now that he saw it in the sun. Nothing like that should be forever contained in the dark.

"Your mayor's daughter is in the first chamber of the cave. Funny, if you had just kept going straight, you would have found her." Her massive, golden head turned slowly into the distance and she heaved a sigh that shook the ground. "I suppose I'll leave now. There's plenty of scales left in the cave for your trophies."

"No don't go..." the dragon-hunter's apprentice muttered.

Her massive eye trained on him and despite the distance, he felt her gaze on his bare torso. She waited.

"You... should stay. You're a... good... dragon?" he spluttered, confused with his own tongue and conflicting thoughts.

"I certainly hope so." And she beamed down at him. Michael thought he felt like he had been blessed somehow. "You're very kind, but I really don't have a place here. And now I have a stubborn hatchling who is going to need a lot of work before he can take care of himself." The sobbing took on a new pitch of helplessness. They both ignored it.

Michael still frowned and looked at the ground despite the painful burn on his back, the bruises on his torso and his aching shoulder and cut thigh, all of the woes he had been though, he couldn't help but feel attached to this creature who was the only one, besides Lord Gareth - who he supposed rested somewhere inside that hatchling's mammoth gut - who had thought of him as more than a shit shoveling page.

The dragoness, as always read his expression instantly, "Don't be glum, you're a dragon slayer now. All the girls in town will be throwing themselves at you."

"I don't want..." Michael started, but what he wanted didn't make sense, even to him.

The dragoness simply smiled knowingly, "Don't worry everything will be fine." She spread her wings and the sky disappeared. The leathery skin seemed to stretch from horizon to horizon, massive bones holding up the new sky. The dragoness seemed even more like the world, no, not the world. Only all the good bits crystallized into a damaged, but still perfect form. The wind of her first stroke shook the trees and knocked Michael down from his unsteady legs. He watched as she beat again and the wind was like a raging storm, the clouds that he could see behind her wings when she lowered them changed their shape. By the third beat, the little knight had to cover his face, young trees fell over and the golden talon grasped the fattened drake gently. The golden wonder rose into the sky and disappeared like a dream in the opposite direction of Heartford. Michael's heart ached like it had been torn from his chest and thrown in front of him. He didn't return to town until two days later and while he won free drinks and a bed at every inn he told his stories at for the rest of his life, no one quite believed them. After all how could a man screw a different virgin every night until he was a hundred?