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GuiltBy StregaHiram had begun to believe that somehow, somewhere, the gold dragon was watching him. How else could it arrange that each time it appeared, he was deep in his cups? He didn't drink all that often, but every time....

"Your dragon is back," an out of breath farmer told him. It had happened enough times now that Hiram knew as soon as he burst through the tavern door he'd say something like that. Once or twice a year for the last five years the Gold had returned, settled down by the ruined keep where it had devoured the black dragon, and waited for a delegation from town. It'd even begun arriving at the start of the winter festival each year, laden with toys and sweetmeats from distant lands, which made it enormously popular with the local children. "He's not actually my dragon, you know," Hiram said sourly, but then he smiled. It was nearly forty years since he first saw the Gold, and despite an early misunderstanding (and his prized warhorse becoming dragon food) he considered the scaly beast his friend. More, it was the village's friend. If it weren't for the Gold's appetite there was no telling how much trouble that black dragon would have caused.

 "All right, all right," he groaned, and left the last of the wine in the goblet. "I'll go talk to him. He probably ate another dragon again and just wants a place to sleep it off." But it turned out that while he was willing to abstain tonight, the dragon was not. The Gold was a familiar sight in the skies now and the recipient of frequent visitors...including, it turned out, a train of merchant wagons that happened to be within a mile of the dragon when it settled into the ruins. A couple of wagons headed that way on the off chance it might want to buy something, and by the time Hiram got his horse from the stable and rode the few miles to the old keep, the Gold had bought out the entire contents of a wine wagon. "Hiram," the Gold hissed rather testily. Hiram considered the two already empty wine barrels, found a third with a few gallons left, and dipped himself out a portion with the tankard he carried on his belt. "Good e'en to you, O Gold," Hiram said. One of these years the dragon would tell him its name. One of these years. "I see you haven't eaten recently," he continued. "Not anything big, anyway." He'd seen the Gold distended around almost equally large dragons twice now, and nearly as bulgy on half a dozen other occasions. Presumably it did sometimes eat less ponderous morsels, but whenever he saw evidence of a meal it was one that must have strained its gape and which swelled its midsection until the skin showed between the scales. One time a clearly humanoid silhouette twenty feet long stood out of the belly. Some sort of giant? Hiram hadn't asked. Like all the other bulges it was gone now, having contributed its bit to the dragon's considerable growth over the years.

 "Bah," the Gold hissed, and drank the last from the open barrel in one gulp. Hiram was beginning to get concerned. He'd never seen the dragon in such a bad mood before, not even after he'd attacked it. He watched as it clawed the lid off yet a fourth barrel and drained half the contents. Even for a creature as large as the Gold it was consuming an alarming amount of wine. "Let me guess," Hiram said, and took a seat on one of the empty and overturned barrels. "You were after some evil dragon, planning to consign it to the same slimy fate as the Black and whatever color dragon you ate last spring, but it got away." That provoked a long groan, and the Gold lay its head down on the ground. "That's what was supposed to happen," it muttered. "Not the getting away part. You know what I mean." It hiccuped. "I don't just fly over these mountains, you know. I wander far in search of friends, adventure, treasure and prey. I heard tell of a white dragon...." ***** Rushwood wasn't the only village he visited. By gold dragon standards he was still quite young and vigorous, andhe flew far and wide. He was well known in the lands of the Maker to the south, where he sometimes tarried to enjoy their spring festival, and in the plains to the west where the nomadic lion people roamed. To the East were the lawless bandit lands where he rarely went, though he had eaten enough of them, humans and orcs and others, when he found them molesting their neighbors. South as well was the nation of elves and several countries of mixed human, dwarf and halflings. He'd even been to Greyston, or as everyone not a native called it, Monstertown. It was a popular city with dragons of all colors, for the enforced interspecies peace meant one could go there for healing, to shop, or to have one's scales decorated with paint, gilt, or metal inlays without worrying that a band of adventurers would get it into their heads to kill you. There was even a dragon in the city guard.

 Far to the north, past the great forests and tundra and the land of demon worshipers, was the ice. Great fields of it, mile after mile, and here the Gold went only rarely. But even here he had friends, and it was whilst visiting a fishing village on the coast that he heard of the White. It raided their village and others, the shaman told him. For three generations the white dragon's periodic appearances from the the mountain glaciers had devastated tribes and driven away game. The only reason the villages were stillhere after fifty years of this was that the White knew there was little treasure to be had from its raiding and dragons do not need to eat at all often. When they did eat they tended to gorge, but the time between meals could stretch to years, particularly in older dragons. The Gold considered all this and nodded. It had been some months since his last sizable meal, and from the shaman'sdescription the White was smaller and weaker than he was. He thought he saw a fix to the village's problems that would leave everyone happy.

 Well, everyone except the White, anyway. Well versed in the habits of dragons, both due to being one and being a more or less professional dragon hunter, he knew that though the White would lay up in its lair between hunts it would inevitably emerge from time to time to make sure no rivals had invaded its territory. Whites were the smallest of the true dragons and until they were quite old and powerful they had many enemies. Polar worms, the many-legged creatures called remorhaz, and even the occasional freakishly overgrown arctic bear could pose a challenge. So the Gold found a tall, bare mountain, one that might have attracted him as a lair in warmer lands, settled down atop it, and watched. He pressed himself into a crevice in the rocks to disguise his shape and allowed the snow to accumulate on his scales though he greatly disliked the cold. Periodically he cast minor protective spells to ward off the worst of the chill, for though they are happy in water Golds are by nature fire dragons. There he stayed for a week, and then a second week, passing the time in the lengthy daydreams that dragons use to while away the years as they guard their hoards. And finally he saw something.

 Over the course of days he noted, and disregarded, the movements of walrus on the shore and arctic fox on the snow.A solitary polar bear appeared in the distance, sniffed the air, and promptly departed. That left the Gold wondering what it had or had not scented, for if the White could be found that easily he would be back at the shaman's tent with a smug look on his face and a ponderous bulge in his midsection as his fourteenth dragon meal made its way through his guts. Finally there was movement that could not be explained by the actions of mammals. Careful though the White was to move in stealth - for proud as it was, it did not want to give away the location of its lair - it must not have considered that a keen eye positioned far above its glacier might see and recognize the sweep of a wing and the curl of a tail. Though it blended in almost perfectly with the snow and ice, its movements gave it away. Without moving more than an eyelid or his tongue the Gold began to cast spells. The White was perhaps sixty feet long and half his mass, big enough to put up a fight, and there was no reason to get his scales any bloodier than necessary before the other dragon disappeared down his throat. Cold protection came first, a far stronger but shorter lived spell than the ward he used before. Then Stoneskin, a powerful defensive barrier against claw and fang. Protection from Evil and a few other minor defensive spells to make it a bit less likely a claw would pierce his scales, and finally Invisibility. Careful movements to dislodge the snow without making his presence obvious to the distant dragon, and he was ready.

 With a thrust of his hind legs he left the peak, his wings unfurling to carry him through the air. Saliva had already begun to flow in his mouth and his belly to rumble, because as a habitual dragon-eater his body unconsciously knew that a meal was on its way. Some had opined that he was a cannibal, but he shrugged that off until the day when he must for some reason eat a fellow Gold or other benevolent dragon. For now he was simply removing evils from the world. That he got a full belly out of the deal each time and belches that tasted of dragon was just coincidence. So far, things had gone perfectly to plan. The White must have heard something at the last possible instant because it looked up with a snarl of defiance. It only made things easier. He actually caught the White's head in his jaws before he even dropped his weight onto the smaller dragon. There was an moment of stunned immobility from the White and then it began to thrash and claw at the Gold. Bigger and stronger, and with the benefit of magical defenses the Gold held his prey down and began to ratchet his fanged jaws further over his meal. Snakier than most dragons he was well adapted to swallowing large prey whole, and despite the White's increasingly desperate struggles its head and half his neck were soon taken into the muscular folds of his gullet.

It must know exactly what was happening from the heat and slick wet throat around its head, but with its snout held shut by first his jaws and then his throat it couldn't use the freezing breath weapon that had been his chief concern. Even with protective spells a fire dragon like himself was susceptible to cold. Without that threat he was free to just hold the smaller dragon down and it was only a matter of time before his swallowing muscles got such a grip the White would be pulled in despite its best efforts. Though a couple of the smaller dragon's attacks had cut into his scales the Gold had already engulfed the White almost to the wing-roots and he knew this encounter could only end in a belch.

That was things finally began to go wrong.

*****

Hiram had already heard rather more than he cared to know about the Gold's hunting habits, but at least as long as the rambling tale went on the dragon wasn't sucking down more wine. Plus, it had finally begun to get interesting.

"What happened? Another dragon attacked and chased you off?" He already knew the White didn't end up inside his friend the gold, since it had come here straightaway from the north and there was no incriminating bulge.

Another groan. "It came up out of the ice and snow. It must have been hunting the White as well, but by the vibrations it made in the ground when it moved. Maybe it didn't realize something was attacking its prey already, maybe it thought it could eat us both. All I know is a long blue muzzle and too many legs erupted from the ice and suddenly the White's tail was gone down a different throat than mine."

*****

It was a behir, one of the many-legged blue things he suspected were somehow related to blue dragons. They were extraordinarily rare and he'd never seen one before, much less one this huge. By all rights a behir, twelve legs or not, shouldn't be hunting a white dragon. This one, though, was so close to his own size it seemed entirely confident it could swallow the White tailfirst and whole. It yanked harder, digging its many claws into the ice.

His fangs, recurved like a snake's, sank in between the White's scales. It wasn't coming back out unless he wanted it to, and as far as he was concerned a far superior outcome was for the entire white dragon to disappear down his gullet. He arched his neck and tugged with all his might. The behir had the same sort of fangs he did, though, and each had a third of the White swallowed. For a long minute they struggled, each glaring at the other and hoping for a quick victory. And then, inevitably, each began to think what might happen if neither let go.

*****

"If I had let go, I could then breathe fire or my weakening breath on the behir, or cast spells. But I knew the instant I released the White the behir would burrow out of sight with its meal. If it let go it could fire off its lightning breath, but I'd fly away with the White. Both of us knew this and neither would let go. We tugged with all our might, which I'm sure the White didn't enjoy at all, but we couldn't manage to tear it in half."

Hiram grimaced. The Gold's tidy method of feeding made him forget sometimes that it did have claws and fangs and must sometimes feed very messily indeed.

"And that left the other alternative. The behir must have figured it out at the same moment I did. We were each after the White, but I began to consider that the behir wasn't much bigger than another dragon or two I've eaten. If I could get the White swallowed far enough, or just let the behir do it, until my jaws were around the behir's head...."

*****

They both thought of it at the same instant, he'd realize later. If he couldn't get the White away from the behir, might he swallow the both of them? It would be a massive meal, more than his entire weight, but even if its tail hung from his jaws for a while, enough of the rest would be in his stomach for digestion to progress. Eventually the rest would follow.

And so almost as one they stopped trying to wrest the White from the jaws of their rival and began to grapple with each other, each trying to work its jaws forward and begin the long process of swallowing a huge double meal. Without his breath or spellcasting or flight to give him an advantage he had only his strength, and he soon realized he was stronger than the behir. It had three times as many legs, though, not counting his wings, and quantity had a quality all its own. There were few attempts to claw to injure, the quarters being too close for that. Both attempted instead to grip and hold and subdue with the aim of dispatching the other down a long slick chute of waiting throat.

It was a protracted and frustrating struggle in which neither made much progress. Each devoured perhaps ten more feet of the hapless white dragon but that came to a dead halt when the two predators realized that each was waiting for the other to leave itself vulnerable to being swallowed. Much as he would like to trap the massive behir's many legs to its sides and suck it in like a giant noodle the Gold realized that they were too evenly matched to be confident he would not be the one slurped up. The behir came to the same conclusion and with the smaller dragon wriggling futilely in both their gullets and their noses separated by a dozen feet of white scales the two simply glared at one another.

After a minute or so of that he realized what he'd been smelling for some time. The behir was female...and in season.

*****

The Gold had covered his head with a flap of his wing, so he didn't see Hiram boggle at him. "In season? You mean, sexually?"

"Yes," the gold dragon groaned, and kept his head hidden. "And she was, after all, very dragonlike. All the effort to get close, wrestle, trying to get her pinned down and her head in my mouth. Her scent filled my nose and suddenly I realized that though I hadn't realized it consciously, my body had known. My tail was wrapped around hers and I was arched above her, ready to--"

Hiram held up his hand. "When you lured in the Black to its doom by posing as a female, you told me how dragons go about it. Sometimes a male and female bond and live together for decades after the male courts her with gifts of treasure and prey. Other times you happen upon a female and, if you suspect she is in the mood you just thrust yourself upon her. Either you get mauled for your trouble or it all works out for everyone concerned."

"There was the matter of the White," the dragon mumbled from beneath his wing. "Even when it became obvious she was amenable to my advances, even as my lust overtook me, I knew I couldn't mate with our muzzles so close together. I still didn't trust her and if she worked her jaws over my head while I was distracted I'd learn things about a behir's insides I did not wish to know. Something had to be done."

*****

They twisted and coiled, her many legs clawing playfully at his scales as he moved into position. They still tugged at the White but that, too, was more playful than serious. Anxious as he was to mount the behir now he wasn't sure how to arrange their bodies - they were not quite of the same shape, and there were all those legs - and there was still the nagging worry that if they coupled belly to belly her legs would get too strong a grip and he'd find a slippery tunnel of flesh expanding over his snout. If she tried that he would have perhaps one chance to drive her away with a blast of flame, and if that failed his meeting with the behir would stretch to as long as it took her to digest him.

Eventually he reasoned that the only solution was to disgorge the White, which he probably would have done regardless. Though she wasn't a gold dragoness, only the greediest of males would refuse his mate a meal in these circumstances. And that raised again the spectre of the White blasting him with its freezing breath even as it vanished tailfirst down her gullet. It wouldn't save the smaller dragon from a trip to the behir's stomach but it could do him some real damage.

The behir saw the caution in his eyes, or sensed it in his body language, and she soon engineered a compromise. Rather than tickling his belly with her many claws she rolled over and lay flat, legs bent and tail twisted to the side to give him access to her nether bits. It having been many months since his last meeting with an interested female he was quick to take her up on the offer. Even as he allowed the White to slip from his jaws and slam to the snow facing away from him and still half swallowed by the behir, he coiled his tail around hers and pushed two meters of unsheathed dragon between her hindmost legs. Each let out a hiss of pleasure as he mounted, though it was drowned in the terrified shriek that emerged from the White as it realized it was still being devoured.

Bit by bit the behir's snakelike jaws walked forward, her fangs alternately digging in and then releasing as first one side of her maw advanced and then the other. At least half of the fangs gripped the White at any moment and with its hind legs pushed up against its belly and half swallowed it could only thrash and claw futilely with its foreclaws as its torso was gradually engulfed. It tried to bend its neck around to breathe frost on the behir, and each time she trapped its head against a protruding chunk of ice. Eventually, and after not too long at all, all that remained of the White was a snapping, terrified face protruding from her jaws and a long bulge in her armored body.

With a last stretch of her neck the White's muzzle was gone, and the Gold watched with morbid fascination as her segmented armor flexed around a lump that moved slowly to her midsection. Even beneath that muscle and armor he could see the White struggling, little though it helped the smaller dragon. There was no escape from its slimy digestive fate. It was still squirming as a lengthy belch bubbled up out of the behir's jaws.

And all the while he arched and thrust. The behir was distracted by its meal but he was not and as the bulge that had been a fellow dragon came to rest in what much be the behir's stomach he roared, clawed at her plated back, and came. Great volumes of pent-up dragon seed left his body in a single shuddering spasm, but even as the last gouts spurted into her she was burrowing into the snow. The bulge slowed her for a moment but soon even that was gone into a crevice in the ice, nothing but clawed footprints and steaming droplets of spilled dragon goo showing that she'd been there at all.

*****

"At the last moment I considering gobbling up her tail, pulling her from the ice and swallowing her tailfirst along with her meal. It would have been a struggle but I think I could have done it. I had just mated with her, though, and it didn't seem right. As I wavered she was gone."

Hiram was fairly certain he didn't need this level of detail on dragon mating habits, but the Gold was his friend and at least it had stopped drinking. Maybe a wagonload of wine wouldn't do the Gold any harm, but he got enough badgering from his wife over his drinking habits that it was second nature to worry about the dragon.

"So the whole time you were...with her, you worried she would eat you, and you were thinking about eating her? Is it normally like that with dragons?"

"Not at all," mumbled the Gold from beneath its wing. "An evil dragon might eat a prospective lover, but it's rare. It doesn't happen at all between metallics like myself. Even eating other dragons is rare for the 'good' dragons. I learned to do it from my mother, but we two have uncommon habits."

"Anyway," Hiram continued. "So you got distracted and had sex with the behir instead of eating her. It's no big deal. The White that was causing trouble got taken out and that's the important thing. No one's going to know about you and the behir. I won't tell."

That brought the longest groan of all out of the dragon.

"I don't understand," Hiram said. "What's the big deal?" "Yes," the Gold said, and pulled its wing-flap off its head. "You don't understand. I followed the White's trail back to its den and who did I find there but the behir, picking through a disappointing collection of loot. Naturally, being a dragon, I thought I should get some of it, and a heated argument ensued. She spoke Common but mostly we just fought. A half serious fight turned into a violent and angry mating with each of us keeping our heads and tails far away from the other's jaws. I decided there wasn't enough treasure to fight about and left. With her belly full of white dragon she was slowed and I really should have eaten her."

"And that's why you are depressed. You could have eaten another evil dragon...-ey thing and you let her get away."

"I didn't think about it until I was leagues away," muttered the Gold. "I didn't think or realize. Very stupid. I'll be a laughingstock when they find out."

"How will they find out? You're my friend and I certainly won't talk."

"But they will," grumbled the Gold. "You are missing one vital point here. She was in season and we dragons are fertile beasts. With a double helping of dragon seed and a big meal to nourish her there is simply no chance she will not soon deliver a clutch of eggs...gold dragon/behir eggs. There has never in my knowledge been such a hybrid and the instant another dragon, wizard, or sage hears of one questions are going to be asked. Books will be written on the subject of the amazing dragonhirs, behgons, whatever. We Golds are a scarce people and it is inevitable that the trail will lead back to me. Bards will write humorous songs about the horny gold dragon and his accidental offspring."

"Um," said Hiram, who finally understood why his friend was drinking. He'd heard a song or two like that, one about a fox, and they never painted a favorable picture of the male in question.

"Well, these sort of things happen," he finally said. "That's why there are dracolisks and whatever they call those big scaly lion things."

"Dragonnes," said the Gold, who knew rather more than Hiram about how they came about. "There are other examples. Young dragons who can't win the affections of a fellow dragon sometimes -"

"Right, right," Hiram said, having already heard more than enough about the amorous habits of dragons. "Look, my wife's going to wonder where I am if I don't head back soon. I'll come back in the morning and we can talk some more. I'll bring Randall, the priest you like."

"I look forward to it," the Gold said with a nod. "Pleasant dreams."

He waited until Hiram and his horse were well out of earshot before he spoke again. "You can come out now. He's gone."

When the merchant wagons had stopped by earlier he couldn't help but notice that one of them was manned (catted?) by khardaki, the wandering lion people. Khardaki very much liked dragons and it was no surprise when he heard and scented a couple of them a few hours later. They stayed in the shadows and heard his tale, only now emerging from the undergrowth. The Gold breathed a tongue of flame into the shattered remains of a wine barrel, for though both he and they saw well in the dark a little more light was always welcome.

He was pleased to see two lithe young lionesses, each over six feet tall and sleekly muscular. Their short mane-like hair was tied into many small braids and leather bracelets beaded with gold encircled their wrists. Their clothing, what there was of it, was also mostly of well tanned leather with a few armor plates in strategic locations. Each carried a bow and a short spear which they used as a walking-stick. Guards from the caravan no doubt, but on their off hours now.

They approached without fear, for they knew gold dragons were benevolent. (He'd eaten a red dragon once that disguised himself as a Gold to lure meals in close. But mostly they were right.)

Though strongly lionlike, with muzzled faces, fur, padded hands and feet and long tufted tails, they were still quite humanoid. As with other young races like gul and praka, there was quite a bit of diversity among khardaki. Some of the lion people were born plantigrade and others digitigrade, some lionwomen with barely visible breasts and some more humanlike in that aspect. Some even had large areas of exposed black skin. That was all right; he liked all the looks.

These were of the furry sort, and they ran their padded hands wonderingly over his scales. "We were wondering, while we listened," the taller one purred. "Gold dragons can change shape, yes?"

"More or less," said the Gold without elaboration. Some changes took an actual spell and some he could do at will.

"Could you, just as an example, turn into a very large lion?" said the smaller with an innocent look.

"Hmm," said the Gold, who did not tell them that this was not the first time a lioness had asked him that precise question, "I suppose I could."

Shortly thereafter, the Gold found reason to no longer be depressed, and if the result of his lack of depression was another dragonne or two, why, those were common enough to arouse little comment.