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Echos of Juena

Second Retreat

Foreword:

This story came to us from a dragon kin by the name of Merakal shortly before the cleansing of Sea Stone Bridge. There are likely embellishments, what we know of old Karkaggon suggests he was never as clever nor wise as the stories suggest. We highly doubt the story plays out quite the way it was told, yet we have depicted it word for word for historic sake.

There is some evidence to much of this, but that came only centuries later when sailors eventually strove inland far enough to find the ruins of Stonehart Valley and read the writings carved there centuries before. What became of Karkaggon is unknown, once he succeeded in his quest, he vanished from the known world never to be seen again.

Dragons, Knights and Maidens fair

By Merakal

1

Karkaggon was old when he came down from the mountain. Many Wyverns made their home in the jungle generations removed from the great dragons of old who were born from Juena's womb during the first retreat. Karkaggon was one of the last and ancient by the time the second retreat began thousands upon thousands of years later.

He came down from the Sky Wall where some said he had lived, exploring the world beyond the wall for so long he had forgotten the world left behind. When he returned though he came with one desire, one intent; to sire another generation, a generation so fierce it would blot out the sun. Upon the Sky Wall he hunted wyverns, show wraiths and beasts unknown. He bred with them and produced many horrors to speak of, but not what he sought. At last he descended upon the realm of man again and claimed the mountain valley of the Stonehart tribe as his domain.

His breath is told to be as hot as the sun, able to melt solid stone to glass and fuse plate armor as the wearer cooked inside. His eyes glowed an ever malevolent violet and his gaze could be seen from one end of the valley to the other, even in the worst snow. His scales as black as night, no gloss, no reflection; they ate all light that fell upon them until the eye just slid off, unable to look. His teeth were like obsidian, glossy black and transparent towards the tip, yet never melted under his own fire. His wings were large enough to span the waist of the valley in shadow when he felt the need to fly. To the villagers he was called the Black God and for good reason.

When he came they tried to fight, they tried to flee, they tried to resist. He cooked and ate those he pleased, shredded the rest and rained their entrails down upon the hamlets and keeps near the mines. The only pass out of the valley, he closed with a great breath that made the mountain flow like ice melt and flood the pass. It took two years for the stone to cool, three before anyone tried cross it and five before anyone managed to escape. Once more the pass was flooded with molten stone and no human ever left alive again.

Once his supremacy was settled Karkaggon enslaved the population; they served him, worked for him and even after a while worshiped him. He was literally their god, he controlled life and death. His breath could torch an entire village or bring life back in to the body of a broken man. Supposedly he could even bring the dead back to life, rotting corpses shambling to his bidding.

Under his guidance and the guidance of his brood of dragon kin the people of the valley turned stonehart mountain in to the largest castle ever built by man. Rooms large enough for even Karkaggon to live in. All of the precious metals and shiny bits of stone found he collected and slept with. Much of the gold melted against his scales and inlaid itself in the cracks between, like mud under fingernails giving him a gilded appearance.

Our story takes place during the four hundredth year of his reign. His peasant people were numerous, in the tens of thousands while his dragon kin knights and servants numbered only in the hundreds. Once, long ago he had more, he had taken two thousand women and raped them all. Those who survived the breeding died at birth when their swollen bodies ruptured. Too large to lay, the single egg a woman carried hatched inside of her and near fifteen hundred dragon kin were born in the first year at the cost of every woman he claimed.

Afterword he was more careful, taking a dozen at a time, one from each village keep or township. His children however were all born male and all about the size and shape of a human. They were intelligent, quick, and powerful; some times wise some times foolish. The were little more than black clad humans borrowing his blood to Karkaggon and he disposed of them as carelessly as his human slaves. The smartest ones kept on their god's good graces and convinced him they knew ways to sire another god. They spoke of rituals, spells and incantations; they spoke of maidens of virtue giving birth to beasts of wonder; they spoke of demons raised up from the earth itself to bare its womb to their black god. In the end they all perished, their attempts pitiful and futile.

2

"Is this what you have for our god?" Hem asked with disdain. He walked down the line of naked human children. Twenty in all, maids freshly blooded; then he stopped and sniffed at one who's face drew to a line of terror, "This one is no maid, she has bedded a man and bares his stain in her womb." He reached up and dragged the girl forward by her blond tresses. She was beautiful, it was true, but she was tainted and would be useless to his god.

His eyes were violet like the Black God's eyes, yet they did not glow; they were centered on black slit pupils that spread open to take in the child below him. She was sixteen and had been at the previous choosing as well he recalled. He reached between her legs and pressed a clawed finger in to her defiled cunt. Her hymen was torn and he could sense the spawn growing in her gut. When he snarled he felt her bladder lose in to his hand and he stepped back in disgust. Urine dripped from his claws and he wiped the filth in her hair, "Disgusting. Kill it." He told his soldier.

She screamed, but was cut short as the blade of obsidian severed her head from her body. The stench of her bowels filled the air as her ruined form hit the floor, "No woman shall spread her legs but by the will of god. There are already too many of you vermin to count, your population must be lowered. If not by choice then by fire." He spoke loud enough for everyone in the shuttered houses to hear.

One woman stepped forward with fire hair and green cat eyes. She had the fair skin of the fae folk, though it had been centuries since any other dared enter the valley, the blood still ran strong. She spoke to Hem with a glare, "She was raped, she did not choose to spread her legs!"

"If she cannot defend her body from violation, she deserves no better." He snapped back and reached out to the fire head, "How about you, would you like to please me? You are too much of a fool to serve our god."

She struggled against his grip with tears welling in her eyes as hair was ripped from her scalp, "N... No!" She stuttered. If she was taken as sacrifice it would mean her death, if she was taken by him it would mean death the moment she was pregnant. None of the dragon kin were allowed to reproduce, only first generations were allowed to survive. The men were never punished of course, only the woman who dared have her womb seeded; as if she could stop it. They were not allowed to learn the sword, nor wield any weapon, they could not defend themselves. Once years before there had been a tea to prevent conception but it had worked too well and it prevented the god from siring in a girl's womb. All of the plants had been burned then.

She was thrown to the ground then as well, but he did not have her slain, "And you perhaps?" He asked of a dark haired girl with hazel eyes and freckled skin, "Yes, I think you will do nicely. God will enjoy your dark curls and your hips are wide; you might survive his love."

She fell to her knees and trembled, tears sprang to her eyes and softly she begged, "Please no... no... I don't want to die." There were no lies, no sweet tales involving what happened to the taken girls. The black god had no need for illusion or secrets, he took what he wanted and no one resisted.

Still begging, pleading in a quiet distant voice, the girl was marched off toward the mountain gate. The others gathered turned away, relieved they had not been killed or taken to the mountain, but one was stopped. The guard who had killed the raped girl curled his fist in a head of fire and lifted her face to his. Violet eyes stared out through an iron helm, "You, I will take you." He told her, "What is your name?"

She thought to fight, she thought to run but there was no where to go and she had no strength against him, "Sesiccia Master." She whispered with quavering voice. Her knees were jelly her heart beat a thousand times a minute and she felt like her bowels had turned to water at his words. She clenched and stood, refusing to be murdered for making a mess of his uniform. She would not shame herself.

"Sesi, I will call you Sesi, my name is Oam. Take me to your home, I would meet your family before we return to the castle." He ordered and she obeyed meekly.

Her father was a planter who lived just over the hill. Her mother had been a gift to him and he had been allowed three children. Two had been boys, she had been the third, youngest. Both her mother and father had fae blood, so it was stronger in her than they, but only her mother had the fire hair green eyes and fair skin that marked her. She lead her husband from town and over the hill. The field was fallow this year and the weed choked dirt was muddy under her bare feet.

The house was little more than a thatched lean-too, come spring it would have to be rebuilt. She lead him to the yard, her father and brothers were out in the field planting spring oats while her mother was handling the wash, "M..Mother!" Sesiccia shouted and waved, trying to put a happy face upon her impending death.

Her mother was a large woman now, once she had been beautiful and survived four choosings before she had been gifted to her father. Now she filled out her dress in large curves and her breasts hung over her belly, held up only by loose fabric. Her face was still kind, though lined and wary; the kind of face that soothed and brought home memories of good food and safe beds.

"Sesiccia, who is this you stand with?" Lothis asked, peering at the dragon kin that held Sesi by the arm.

"My..." She trailed off, unable to finish.

"I have claimed her as wife. She will be well cared for in the castle, I promise she will want of nothing." He told them.

"But a head when you are done with her." Snapped her mother with a glare, "Why her? Why not one of the other foolish maids in the town? Sesi is smart, kind and skilled; don't waste her!" She knew how to speak to a Master, to convince them to do what was necessary.

"It is just those qualities that drew me to her. She stood up to the chancellor with quick words and a smart mouth. I feared he would slay her on the spot, but he didn't." Oam spoke as he gazed down upon the trembling girl. He was nearly seven feet tall, like a giant with a waif.

Taken back, Lothis shuddered and stared at the girl, "Why would you do such a fool thing as that Sesiccia?! Did I not teach you better?"

"Forgive me mother... Detha was raped last week by Coster's sons. She hoped that she had been spared but Hem smelled the truth. He... He killed her. Then... then he chose Rena." Sesi shuddered and began to cry again, her shoulders shaking. She knew her own fate would be the same, sooner or later when Oam was done with her.

Lothis sighed and nodded with disgust, "Those boys should have been killed, not Detha."

Oam said kindly to the old mother, "Seed sown upon stone is wasted as long as there is no soil to till." Priestly words, taken right out of the dragon's book. Lothis just glared at the half dragon. He nodded his head as if she had spoken something enlightening and said, "I shall take my leave, Sesi, dress and collect whatever you wish to bring with you."

She darted off as quick as lightning, terrified and obedient. Lothis continued to glare at the beast man until at last she said, "Don't waste her, she has a good heart and head." Then she turned away, ignoring Oam's bemused expression.

3

The castle was an airy place with halls large enough for the Black God to walk through as long as he ducked his head and folded his wings. The main hall was open to the sky and as cold as hell itself. It was also large enough for the dragon to take to wing and it overlooked the valley far below. For lesser beings there were smallholds dug deep in to the bones of the mountain, each a castle in and of itself but fit for dragon kin in stature. Oam was a knight retained at one such smallhold under Hem his priestly liege and served well.

The walk was arduous but he had made it many times and his legs were strong enough to carry him anywhere in the castle within a few hours. Sesi on the other hand had never walked so far in her life, nor climbed so many steps up, nor down. Half way through he had her on his back, snoring in his ear as he carried his maiden deep in to the bowels of the earth. The way was lit by sun shafts by day and glow moss by night. When he finally reached his master's smallhold it was well in to night and a series of fires burned in hearths to warm and light the place.

If the place had been above the surface instead of below, it would have stood like a short squat and ugly cube of a building, with a single off center turret rising above. From within though it was carefully built and well maintained with marble floors granite walls and a multitude of cosy rooms. Air left through a single chimney rose up and connected with others from many floors to create a single smoking shaft that spilled out on to the western face of the mountain, away from the valley. It was drawn in through a multitude of sun slits low in the floor that were glazed to a shine so as to reflect light deep under ground as well as wick air in.

When Sesi awoke again, she found herself tucked in to a warm feather bed, her body scrubbed clean and naked under the soft sheets. An old maid sat sleeping in a chair beside her, ugly as sin, but likely that was what let her become old. She sat up and shivered, her breath made a cloud in the air. The fire had gone out some time in the night and the part of the mountain they were on was covered in glacier.

She crawled naked out of bed, searched for a moment, then found the chamber pot under a privy. The noise of relieving herself woke the maid, who shivered, rubbed her hands, then set about restarting the fireplace, "Forgive me My Lady." She muttered, "I must have dozed off and let the fire burn out."

Once she was done, Sesi snuggled back under the warm blankets and peered at the woman as she fumbled, stiff fingered with a match and striker. At last she spoke, though feeling quite timid, "Where am I?"

"Smallhold of house Hem, chancellor to the Black God." Was the chattering response, "Are your fingers more nimble dear? I'm afraid mine are quite cold and already rather stiff even when warm."

"Yes of course." She whispered, then climbed over and took the striker and match from her and with two quick strokes caught the match, then followed with the tinder.

The maid glanced at Sesi's nakedness and whispered, "Oh my, you will catch your death of cold like that! Oam will gut me if you should fall ill. Get back in bed My Lady."

"I'm hardly a lady." Sesi muttered then crawled back as she was bidden and snuggled under the warm covers, "I'm a farmer's daughter."

The woman shook her head, her hands held out to the spreading flames while she glanced back at Sesi, "No, whatever you were before, you are a Lady now."

To that Sesi only shrugged. The room was large and spacious, the walls hung with richly patterned rugs and the ceiling stuffed with woolen batting to trap the heat. The doors were larger than Sessi would have thought, though some dragon kin grew to nine or ten feet in height so it was necessary she supposed. To that she supposed she was thankful, her Husband was only a head and a half over her.

"Is Oam kind?" She asked at last, startling the old woman.

The woman screwed up her face in thought, then shrugged and answered, "Kind? I suppose for a Master. He has never beat anyone he was not ordered to, nor taken out his anger. He does not drink to excess or brawl, though occasionally he does answer challenges yet he has always come out the victor; that of course may change as he gets old."

Sesi gave a nod and pull the covers closer, "I suppose I will not live long enough to see that day."

To that the elder nodded sorrowfully, "I suppose you might be right. You may go a while, keeping him from siring your death, but in the end they always get what they want. A few got it in their head that they might find fun with me, I satisfied them with my mouth and spat the death at their feet when finished. Now I've grown old and no one looks twice."

Sesi could only blush at the thought while also rather amused at the thought of the old toothless woman pleasuring a dragon with her mouth. Eventually a giggle escaped her, then a laugh, and then it turned to sobs which she muffled in her pillow until she fell asleep once again.

When morning came so too did breakfast and her clothes, mended and washed. She did not see Hem or Oam; but another soldier bid her good morning and was courteous enough to show her around, "I am Lot, My Lady." He told her with a pleasant smile on his draconic muzzle, "Oam told me of you, it has been many years since he desired another. You must be quite special to him!"

Sesi blushed at that and gave him a meek shrug, "I don't know..." She mumbled and followed him around, careful not to be slapped by his armored tail. He seemed rather clumsy with it and gave her two rather painful bruises when turning corners.

By dinner time he had returned, her husband, and he seemed quite eager to see her. He took her in his arms and kissed her; it was a strange kiss, his forked tongue tasted pleasant though quite unlike the few human boys and girls she had kissed. When he pulled away his claws framed her face and his violet eyes gazed upon her, "Ahh today seemed to drag on for an age My Lady. I hope you have found the place comfortable? I bid old Miya to attend to your needs. She attended to mine when I was a child in fact."

Sesi nodded mutely and just pressed herself in to him. He was her death, poised and waiting, yet he was the only one who cared about her here. She clung to him as quiet tears began to slide down her face until they met his clothing and told him the truth of her sorrow. He lifted her chin and stared in to those green feline eyes, shining with tears, and he kissed them closed.

"I had another wife once, long ago." He told her when she had finally finished, "I loved her dearly and she loved me. It was in fact she who begged my heart one day when I was but a boy. I took her in to my arms and made her my queen." He ran his fingers through her hair, silken and soft after the brushing Miya had given it, "We were together five years." His voice was a whisper, filled with emotion.

"It isn't any easier for you than it is for us." Sesi observed and reached up to touch his cheek. She found tears upon his scales and brushed them aside with a thumb.

He continued after a deep breath, his eyes staring through her to the past, "No it isn't Sesi. One night I got drunk and took her to bed. If she had bid me to stop I might have, if she had said something, anything... but she didn't. She took me in to her arms, in to her womb, and I gave her death at the peak of our pleasure. She cried while she smiled, she kissed my tears and told me it would be alright, that maybe it wouldn't take." He pulled away from her then with only his claw upon her shoulder making contact.

"It did." Sesi said, to which he nodded, "Did you..." He nodded again.

"We made love one final time and then it was over. She was beautiful even in death, she never cried, never begged, the smile never even left her lips. Her eyes though, her eyes were sad and lonely." His voice was a husky whisper when his eyes finally met hers again, seeing her, "I shouldn't have taken you. This was a mistake, I can't go through that again."

She didn't know what to say to him. He had taken her, he had made her his wife; that couldn't be undone now. She belonged to him until the day he took her life away. Tears welled again in her eyes and she turned away from that piercing violet gaze, then fled in to her bedroom away from him. He watched her go, his hand still out stretched from where her shoulder had been; but he did not follow.

4

Over time the ritual had evolved, from simple bestial rape, to something more proper though still with its taste of deadly violence. The Black God was huge, he towered over men and dragon kin, fifty foot at the shoulder with four massive legs that held his huge gilded black body. From between his legs spilled the immense penis, a muscular, sticky protrusion of fifteen feet. The tip was tapered to a usable point, with a urethra wide enough to push a man's thumb down.

He sat there, before his assembled children and their respective wives, resting upon his haunches with that black sticky flesh protruding above the chained maids. Most had been washed, drugged, and carefully tended to for two days before the mating was to take place. From twelve there would be no screams, no cries, each of them was in a delirious state, awaiting their god's gift of death.

Sesi sat, pressed against her Husband's body, trembling like a leaf. Two of the girls she had known, not exactly friends but she liked them, a third was her friend. The mating pit was a bowl of stone in the center of the great hall, each of the girls would be chained to it. But first they were lead before him, stumbling. Priests pulled their thighs apart and held them up before their god, and the god let his vile prick slide forward, to smear moisture across the girl's belly until he either found the cleft nestled between their thighs, or Hem guided him in to the girl. There he thrust, filling her in a quick jerk, so subtle it showed no response on his body, but his length shot forward and broke the maiden's shield.

It was symbolic now, once he had raped the women where they lay, spearing their bodies and some times impaling them to the point of death, but now he was more careful, more gentle with his intended sacrifices. Once claimed, they were lowered in to the bowl and chained to it, legs spread open. Once twelve were in place, the thirteenth was chained at the lip of the bowl, over a wide groove, she was still yet to be broken by the Black God. Her flesh would be sacrificed first, not to breed but to pleasure the Dragon, "Rena..." Sesi breathed.

The voice boomed over them, deep and rumbling, like echos of bolders down a mountain, "Another year, another sacrifice. Perhaps these humans are prepared to sire a god."

Rena was trembling like a leaf, sobbing with her chest and face over the edge of the bowl, her hands bound inside of it. Her rear was raised up, knees shackled astride the trough to guide any spilled semen in to the bowl. She had fasted for two days, and relieved herself before the sacrifice; but if she could have, Rena would have wet herself in front of hundreds. She did not have the drug her sisters were given, she was to suffer for his pleasure.

Hem grasped the Dragon's black phallus and pressed the narrow tip against Rena's unbroken entrance, then said for all, "May this child bare the god we all so desire!" Then with that said, the dragon thrust, impaling the poor virgin upon his pike.

She screamed in agony as the head entered her. A man might break a hymen with his penis, but it was more than her hymen that broke. Though the tip was tapered and narrow, the head itself was thicker, an arrow head of swollen flesh that stretched the poor girl until flesh ripped with an audible pop followed by a wet sprinkling of blood upon stone. Her back arched in terrified pain and she screamed again.

Her voice screeched then broke and went silent when the Black God thrust again, she tore her own vocal cords. Her stomach distended visibly before everyone, and against her back Sesi felt Oam's penis bulge under his clothes; it made her tremble to think this aroused him. Another thrust and her dear friend's pelvis shattered with a snap like dry kindling, the phallus so thick at that point it had to make room. Her eyes were open, staring in to the crowd; they were red ringed and her lips were swollen as blood rushed to her head. In that position she would not faint, blood kept pumping, her lungs kept sucking at the air.

Sesi wanted to look away but she couldn't, she had to bare witness to the death. She continued to tremble but her eyes never blinked, never glanced away as that penis forced its way in to her friend's body. Organs were shoved aside, ribs cracked audibly, her body stretched and bulged in disturbingly wrong ways. Then he withdrew, a slurp of sound followed by a rain of blood accompanied his massive prick as it escaped, then he thrust again, bottoming out against her shattered ribs once more.

He continued that way for a while, never quite tearing through her, never wrenching the girl from her shackles. He was so large and she so small, Sesi wondered how her god could find pleasure in that tiny human shape. She realized then that was the point, he wanted another god, another to love. Humans were too frail though, too small, how could they possibly give birth to a god.

Rena's eyes still hung open, staring ahead, then they focused on Sesi, a terrible thing to behold. She still lived even as her body was ruined, she lived and she saw Sesiccia watching her die. Quietly Sesi mouthed,"I'm sorry." The chosen girl said nothing though in response.

Far above them they could hear the deep breaths of the Black God, he was in pleasure it was obvious and his thrusts were growing short and violent. Blood bloomed on Rena's naked breast as a spear of broken bone thrust through, just above her nipple. Then another thrust drove a second spear out below her other breast. She was breaking apart at the seams, one arm had snapped and dangled uselessly from the shackles though still held together.

Then he released. It was horrific to watch as Rena's body swelled suddenly and pinkish yellow fluid gushed from the wounds in her chest. A moment later she gagged and choked, then a powerful flood of blood stained semen poured up her throat like a fountain. It splashed down in to the basin below her, spraying her sisters; she was the faucet and they the sink. His release came in waves, like small tsunami one after the other. On the third her chest cavity gave way with a sharp jerk of his hips and a rush of bloody entrails, creamy yellow cum, and blood flooded the stone bowl. His penis speared through, splitting the rest of her body apart as it bottomed out, yet still spasmed and released another three torrents of death.

Rena lay, torn in two, in a puddle of blood and semen. Her eyes were still open, still staring at Sesi, then she blinked them closed and it almost looked like she was crying; still alive yet ruined. A handful of Priests carefully fished the bits of flesh from the bowl and helped clear one of the girl's faces who had been sprayed by their god. Drugged as she was, she might have drowned if not careful.

Inside the pool of semen, waist deep, the maiden's were seeded with their death. Too delirious to know, they would stay in that basin for the rest of their short lives, until they hatched like an egg. For three days they would sit stewing in his semen, then it would drain away and they would be washed and tended.

Spent the Black God turned away and left, the great booming steps of his feet echoing through the mountain as he returned to his sleeping chamber of gold and jewels. Sesi looked up at her Husband with tears in her eyes, "Poor Rena.." She whispered, then buried her face in his chest.

He held her, then whispered, "She had it best, the drug will wear off in an hour and for the next eleven months those girls will know their doom. Next spring they will die, your friend died now, quickly; she will not suffer.

5

In the night after the mating, Oam came to her. She was sleeping when he took to bed, and woke her with the gentlest of touches. She trembled and looked up at him, bleary eyed. Her dreams had been horrible, poor Rena dying again, splitting in to a thousand shards of dragon that chewed and tore at the flesh of the chosen maidens in the pool.

Gently he pulled back the covers and exposed her nakedness. A candle was lit not far and the fire in the hearth burned strong; plenty of illumination to show off her beauty. He was naked as well, his black obsidian scales glistened in the firelight before her eyes, "Do... Do you wish..." She trailed off, unable to say it, with the vision of Rena still haunting her eyes.

He laid a claw to her lips, the sharp point pressed along side her nose, then he kissed her and held her to the bed. He kissed her so hard her lips bruised, he kissed her until she couldn't breathe, he kissed her until she felt his erection pressing against her thigh. There was the taste of mead upon his lips, honey and spice. She trembled but said nothing and just held him. For a moment she wondered if she wanted to die; she was sure her death would be kinder than Rena's or the rest.

His weight fell upon her, scales smooth and hard against her fair skin. She arched up to him, taunting him with her death, silently begging for it, but she spoke no words. She understood then how his previous wife had felt, yearning for release. She didn't love him, but she wanted him; he was handsome, kind and gallant. At last she pushed him back until he sat, straddling her thighs.

He was glorious, more beautiful than god. His stomach was tight and muscled, his chest as well. His arms were bunched cords from years of sword play. Between his legs her eyes fell to take in his maleness. It sprang from a cleft not unlike her own, tight labia, puffy and smooth, a fold of inner labia, curled around the base of his emergence. He was similar to god's phallus, yet smaller, kinder, and a shade of dark pinkish purple instead of black. She slid down, between his thighs and took his length in her hands. It was warm, smooth and slippery like a frog's skin; it trembled against her fingers.

She did as Miya said and took him between her lips. He tasted sour, salty, bitter, unpleasant; yet it was better than death. She took him deeper until her nose pressed in to his cleft, the scent of him overpowered her, it made her eyes water and her stomach heave. She didn't stop. His hips lifted a little, thrusting against her accepting mouth and down her swallowing throat. She gagged upon him but didn't stop, she felt her gorge rise, then swallowed it back down hard; making him cry out in the process.

He was thick, but not too thick, he was long though not nearly as long as his father. She felt him fall, landing upon the bed again as the pleasure of her mouth possessed him. He laid atop of her, thrusting down her throat; it was awkward and he bruised her nose more than once, but she submitted to it, it was better than death.

When he spent himself, his stain filled her mouth; bitter and musky, but also a hint of sweetness. She didn't spit him out, she swallowed and sucked at his tip, drawing the last of him from his body. When he was finished he pulled away and gazed down at her on all fours, "Sesi..." He whispered.

"Next time Oam... wash yourself first." She told him, and for the first time she had ever heard of, a dragon looked embarrassed. If he hadn't been black, she likely would have seen his muzzle tinged pink with a blush.

"Er, yes My Lady." He mumbled.

She reached up to caress his flaccid length as it slowly retreated back in to his body; then she slid her fingertips in to that slit and stroked the underside. He shuddered and his penis halted its retreat; she smiled at that and continued until her finger slipped upward, in to the slit and found something she did not expect. Her digit pushed further and she felt flesh give way, torn under her gentle touch. He winced and said, "Careful... It's sensitive you know."

She brought fingers to her lips and tasted them, blood and sour. She glanced back at the slit with his protruding member, it looked very like her own. She reached down between her legs with her dry hand and stroked slowly across her own entrance, feeling the exact same shape, the exact same entrance. She thrust a digit inside, tearing her own hymen while he watched, and winced in pain. Then she brought her fingers to her lips and tasted blood and sour...

Her actions drew another response from him, his erection grew again to its fullness and pressed against her cheek. Then he rose and dragged her back up the bed and kissed her once more. His flavor still on her lips. He broke it again and nodded, "Yes, next time I wash first." This time she was sure he blushed.

Before she could say a word though he lowered himself upon her and pressed his lips to her sex. His forked tongue flicked in, tasting the maiden blood. She could do nothing but moan and writhe on the bed as he gave her his tongue. Safe, this was safe and it felt so divine. His lips brushed against her clit, his nose inhaled her scent and spread great waves of air rushing across the tiny hairs of her mound, belly, and chest. She shivered and trembled under his touch, "Oam..." She cried as a tension built within her. She had never expected him to do in kind, though she at least had the decency to take a bath before bed.

Her climax was sweet, the first she ever tasted, and she basked in the trembling afterwords while he still caressed everywhere with that long tongue. The feathery tip flickered to and fro, tickling more than pleasing, but that too sent her blood to burning. At last she pushed his face away with a gasp for breath and her stomach cramped and ached from squirming and clenching.

"That wasn't your first time." She whispered to him, to which he nodded, "Oh scales..." She panted, then dragged him up by his ears and kissed him again. This time it was she who forced, she who demanded and it was he who yielded to her hunger. Then they slept there, him atop of her, a cage of scale and flesh capturing her naked body. Under the heat of him she needed no blanket, in fact she felt far too warm but she dreamed anyway.

This time she was a dragoness, her womb being seeded by a massive dragon with claws digging in to her shoulders, teeth upon her throat and tail twined about her. She was trapped, held down and taken like a beast, yet she was willing, begging him to fill her. When she woke again she could barely breathe, pinned under his weight; he hadn't even shifted through the entire night. Her lips awoke him, gentle upon his cheek and she whispered to his sleepy ear, "I love you Oam." Maybe she did maybe she didn't but her emotions were a torrent of desire, affection, love, need, and terror. Even if she didn't love him, she belonged to him and he held her life in his claws.

6

Hem was a cruel beast. Over the course of the next year he claimed four daughters as his wife and sired in each of them the first night. They died slowly as well, giving him pleasure with their lives as well as their deaths. He even made eyes at Sesi, but he never moved to take her; to do such would have brought down Oam's ire and his sword.

When she could, Sesi went to the chosen maiden's and tended to them. She sang to them, she brushed their hair, she held them as they cried. They were still chained in that bowl, still naked. The center of it was a drain and every day the bowl was washed of their filth then they were bathed. She was there often and her presence brought the eye of many dragon kin and even once or twice the Black God when he decided to preside. It was dangerous for her, a wife who lived long brought scorn from others but Oam said he could handle it.

All twelve were gravid and terrified, their stomachs so large, each containing a single massive dragon egg. She shared in their fear and gave them calming yet empty words to soothe. All knew their fate however and the month of hatching approached rapidly, "Don't fear it sweetlings..." Sesi whispered to them one afternoon, "What could have been, would have been, should have been... none of that matters. This is your purpose in life, you will fulfill that purpose beautifully. Soon enough it will come, as sure as winter, but until then, don't fear it, just know that your suffering will end and you won't be forgotten."

A couple of them cried but a few took courage in her words. At least until the Black God's head descended upon them, his great violet eye, flaring with crackling light stared directly in to Sesi's soul, "Wise words from one so small." He said, his deem voice shaking her very bones. The maiden's were terrified of him, any time he was near they shuddered and cried; but his gaze did not make Sesi fear.

Sesiccia stood and stared back in to that great eye, with her hands upon her hips and she spoke, "Every night when I go to bed with my husband, I face death. Some day it will meet me, until that day I go to bed willingly because I love him." She was terrified as she said the words, but she said them anyway, "all things fade away in the end; some burn like a spark from a flame, brief and bright; some like a smoldering log, lasting all night giving heat but little light." Quickly she added after a second thought, "And some like yourself, burn as bright as the spark yet last an eternity."

"Mmm..." The dragon said with an amused glint in his eye, "I too will fade some day I am sure. All my brothers have faded or gone far from this land. For now I am your god and your spark will burn out soon enough that it will not matter to you." The dragon then sat back and pulled his head up away from the circle of women baring his children, "Tell me dragon wife, who is your husband?"

For a moment cold stark terror filled Seci's stomach, she let none of it show on her face, but she wanted to lie, wanted to say it was some one else. Instead she said, firmly, "Oam, if it pleases you, God."

"And he has sired no spawn in you?" The dragon mused with a low thrumming sound, "Is he impotent? Are you barren?" The dragon said, that amused glint still shining.

"No, God. We have found other methods of pleasure that will not cost me my life." She told him, head lifted. It was not taboo exactly, but it was expected of dragon kin, when they took a wife, the wife would be short lived. The long lived ones were some times found to have birthed in secret or were in fact barren. However a dragon's seed was potent, and as long as the womb was intact even a woman barren to a man would bare a dragon's spawn.

The dragon laughed then and the entire room turned, standing still as stone, and stared at him. The Black God rarely laughed more than once a decade, and when he did it was usually following some act of slaughter or great suffering. When the booming thunder of his laughter ended and the echos finally faded away, the dragon looked back down at Sesiccia with a wide amused smile that showed many many sharp teeth, "You should have been born a God."

Seci just blushed and stared back up at the god in bewildered wonder. Behind her there was movement, a rushing of clawed feet, then a hand touched her shoulder and she glanced back to see Oam. He looked as terrified as the chosen maidens below. Her back pressed to his chest and his arms circled her, for a moment she was silent, but then told him, "I think we are well, Husband."

The dragon's eyes focused gain on the pair of them and they stared back as they were bathed in violet light, "Oh ho, yes I remember you Oam, squalling from your shell mother nearly sixty years ago." Though Sesi knew he was old, she did not realize he was that old, "I see that you have kept out from under foot for all this time."

"Yes God." He said though Seci could feel his hands shake, laced over her stomach.

"Your wife has amused me, Oam. I will give you a gift; you may sire as many upon her as you wish, so long as she attends me and keeps me company." His eyes focused on Sesi and he continued, "Death is as certain as winter, yours will come in time but I expect you may stave it off for a while yet."

Oam was thunderstruck, he stared ahead blankly for a moment, then stuttered out, "Thank you God!"

"Don't be thanking me until you have three hundred simpering brats tangling about your feet. I expect some day I will wear your ire." The Black God said, but his eyes were still glinting and his smile had become a slow smirk.

Sesi clutched at his hands over her womb, then said softly, "Three... hundred..." She shuddered at the thought of her birthing bed so many times, "I would be content with one."

7

The hatching came in the night, the first with a howling scream that went silent as the child went for his mother's throat. He feasted until a Priest came to take the child away. After which others sat and waited; they would not come all at once, but after the first one the others would not be long. Sesi joined them come day break, a second had hatched from his egg mother before then. The other ten were sobbing wrecks, still staring at the streaks of blood where their sisters had lain at their side for nearly a year. The stench of blood, bowel and egg cloyed the air.

Gently Sesi stroked her fingers through the tresses of two of the girls. They were calming some as she spoke, "Sweetlings, your suffering is at its end shortly. I will be here to close your eyes and wish you well in to the void. May you dream sweet dreams forever." She kissed one of the girl's brows as she saw the egg move, then backed up a little, not wanting to be the first the child's hunger was wrought upon.

She screamed as the egg cracked inside of her, then a bloody rose bloomed below her navel as a clawed hand wrenched free. After a moment her whole stomach split apart, blood spraying about and the trembling, sticky child clawed free of his egg mother. He howled at the cold and his mother screamed in pain. Then he sank his teeth in to the flesh of her breast and it burst in his mouth. Heavy with milk and blood, he drank of her, then went for the other while she shuddered and squirmed. Her eyes were wild and terrified, mouth agape as she was eaten alive.

Sesi stole a dagger from one of the priests and drew it quickly across the girl's throat. She died with a whisper of thanks never quite spoken. Her hand was struck sharply and the dagger was reclaimed, though the priest did not seem to mind what she had done. The girl next to that looked up at Sesiccia and said, "Please sister, end me now before he hatches..."

Sesi shook her head and said softly, "It may yet be hours or even days before the child comes, if your body goes cold too soon, he may die before birth. Your death comes soon sweetling, don't ask me for it yet." The girl began again to cry, but she nodded in understanding.

Gently she stroked the young faces, washing tears away with a cloth and cleaning the splatter of blood from dead sisters. Part of her craved to lay with them, her own death near, a twisted sick part of her that she had met when she first came to Oam. But in her belly grew a child, she barely showed yet, but she knew it was there. This child would not be her death, this child a gift from her god.

She kissed one of the girls softly on the lips and held her face in her hands, "Good bye dear one." She whispered as the shell within her broke and her stomach was sundered. This child came free with a screech and began to feast upon his mother's thighs and groin; the first meat he saw. The priest she had taken the knife from came down and slit the girl's throat while Sesi held her. She too bid thanks upon her last bubbling breath. The child was taken, so too the body, and then there were eight.

The next to go was a doe eyed girl with soft brown hair and a hint of fae. She begged and pleaded, screamed and thrashed against her bindings. She did not go quietly and her suffering scared the others even worse. The priest was quick to slit her throat even before the child had fully escaped his egg mother's womb. There was no thanks upon those lips, no relief in those eyes, only terror and anger. She closed them with a kiss, and bid her to fear and hate no more.

One by one her sisters fell before their children, feasted upon or by the knife. Sesi had grown strangely calm during it, it no longer seemed a horror to her, but something beautiful and sad. One of the children she held for a moment, bathed in mother's blood and milk, it squirmed and blinked up at her, quiet for the first time since hatching. Then the child was taken from her arms and Sesi knew she had a taste of what her future might hold. Her blood soaked hand laid to her swelling stomach and she smiled.

The last one was calm and quiet. She had been a sullen youth never truly a friend, but not for any ill will. Sesi sat down and lifted the girls head in to her lap and stroked her brow with the back of her hand. She smeared blood, but neither seemed to mind, "Are you afraid sweetling?" She asked, to which there was a nod.

"I'm glad you are here Sesiccia." The girl whispered, then winced as she felt the egg shift inside. For months the eggs had been moving, but now it was sharp jerks and bumps. The girl gasped and Sesi cupped her cheek, "Good night sister." She whispered, "Dream good sweet dreams for ever more." The egg cracked at last and the child tore free of her, through her lower stomach below her navel.

The priest moved in but the girl whispered, "Wait..." Her face a twist of pain, "Let me hold him?"

The child had began to rip chunks from his mother's thigh and swallowed them in great bloody gulps. The girl lifted her arms, but the shackles restrained her. For a moment the priest hesitated, then he nodded and undid the bindings on her wrist. The dragon kin child was lofted up and set upon his egg mother's breast. There he stared up with strange wonder in those violet eyes, then settled down to nurse like any other babe might do.

She smiled as she stared down, until her head fell back. Her thigh opened; blood drained away quickly and before the child had his fill of milk the light in her eyes faded. Sesi shut those eyes and lifted the child to a priest. It was done; in a few weeks the choosing would start all over again and another thirteen children would come. Sesi's heart ached.

Off in the distance a rumbling voice echoed down the hall, "Sesi, come." It said and she did as her god bid.

He was laying upon his bed of gold and stone, sprawled on his back. Awake his fire lay dormant yet when he slept no one could come close for fear of being burned alive by his radiance. He had woken not long ago and the heat of the room was still intense; a puddle of molten gold pooled in the coil of his tail and another under his shoulder. She stayed well back from him as he rose and watched the cascade of cooling metal fall away. His scales shined for a moment, glossy under the gold; then it fell away and left them black as night.

"Yes God?" She asked timidly.

"I heard what you did, there was less screaming this year than all the previous in memory. Was that all you wished for? Quiet?" He asked and gave his lips a lick, "I do so enjoy their cries."

"Forgive me God, I just did not wish them to suffer overmuch." She answered with knees trembling.

"Oh do not fear Dragon Wife, if I wish to hear a scream I can find one any time I like." He told her and that much was true, "So you have become our own little reaper, sending the souls of the damned to the void with peace." He mused as he shifted; another cascade of cooled gold falling from his scales.

"Not all, a two before I woke and one during departed without peace." She answered. There was no mirth, no playful banter in her today, not anymore.

"You are troubled." He observed.

"Yes God." She answered.

"Tell me." He demanded with a firmness he rarely took with her.

For a moment she was terrified, her deep secrets had been kept for nearly a year, she had no desire to voice them, let alone to the one who might make them true. But his command was not to be disobeyed or avoided, she nodded her head, took a slow breath, then told him honestly, "I longed to be with them, God. When I first laid under Oam, I felt him against me, so hard and close. A little slip, a little shift of my hips and he would have entered me and shortly there after I would have died in his arms. Those girls were terrified, horrified of their deaths; but I craved it, I wanted him." She flushed at the memory, laying there, feeling the twisted ache in her womb.

"So our little reaper craves death herself does she?" The dragon rumbled then lowered himself until his head was no more than a foot from her body. He was so large, she could have fit herself in one of his nostrils. His tongue slithered out, black as his penis, wet and sticky. It tasted her a moment, savoring the mixture of blood, milk, and egg, "Come in to my parlor, said the spider to the fly." He murmured against her stomach, then he opened his mouth, so large she could have a party between his teeth.

"G..God?" She stuttered and stared in to that cavern of a mouth. His breath was hot and damp, with a stench of aged meat; not rotten, just old.

"You wish for death, enter my mouth Sesi, surrender yourself to my belly. You may be my breakfast if you like; I have not eaten for several weeks nor tasted human flesh for months." He told her with an amused glint in his eye, barely visible around the gape of his mouth.

She stared a moment longer, then slowly, carefully pulled off her blood soaked clothing and stepped naked between his teeth. She felt his hot breath upon her skin and downy fur, it tickled and sent goosebumps along her arms and legs. She trembled like a leaf as his tongue snaked about her, the powerful muscle squeezing her about the middle till she felt she might pop. The jaw closed behind her and for a moment she surrendered. To herself she said, "It's over now..."

She felt herself move about his mouth, that tongue touching everywhere at once, leaving nothing untasted. She felt herself slide back, along the tongue and pressed against the roof of his mouth; it was hard and not the least bit fleshy. Then she fell back, tumbled along that tongue and cried out softly... and landed in a scalding hot claw as he spit her free. She had gotten herself turned around while he tongue bathed her.

"Quite tasty... I should partake of one of the egg mothers for breakfast. Their blood and milk is sweet." He told her as he set her upon the floor, next to the sodden pile of ruined clothes.

"You..." She whispered softly, then stopped and stared up at him.

"Have you had your fill of death, reaper?" To that she nodded with tears beginning to well in her eyes. She was grateful yet also mourned that he did not swallow, "Good, now go find your husband. I'm told men who come home from battles fuck their wives half to death; just to remind themselves that they are alive after seeing so much death. I wonder if the same is true for reapers?"

Sesi fled naked then from her God, his saliva drying upon her skin. When she found him, standing guard at a gate; she did as she was bidden. His partner stared in amused surprise as she mounted Oam in broad daylight and drank his beloved seed in to her womb.

8

The child was born in fall, shortly after harvest yet before the snow had completely driven the folk from their homes in to the mountains. The hall was so cold that only constant fires kept the chill at bay; or laying within Oam's arms, his heat was more than enough for both of them.

She named him Yamei after her grand father. He was the perfect likeness of other dragon kin in features, but his eyes had a hint of green and he was a tenth the size of the first generation. There was one rather drastic difference however, one she had to show to God. With thighs still wet from birth and body sore; she carried the babe in her arms up to the cold hall and in to her god's chamber. He was close to bedding down for the night and she could feel the heat building in the room; so she moved quick to rouse him.

"God." She called to him and he lifted his head to gaze with violet fire, "My child is born, I wish to present him before you."

"Come reaper!" He said, he never called her Sesi anymore, "What pathetic spawn has fallen from between your cold thighs?" Humans were all cold to dragons, their body temperature so far below that some times it hurt to even touch her husband's flesh.

She held the boy up, his scales glossy with a hint of violet and red; not the pure black of god, nor the beautiful obsidian of his children, "I have named him Yamei after my grandfather."

"He seems to have all the pieces in the right place, though he does appear rather small. Any larger I suppose would have left you as ruined as my yearly wives." He responded, then his head jerked back with a start as something notable spread from the child's back. Two wings, frail and so thin to be almost transparent. They were not unlike the Black God's wings, just the wrong color and far far smaller, "He will fly." The dragon murmured as he brought his head in close to stare intently at the child. To his credit, Yamei made not a sound and just stared back up at his grandfather with silent impunity, "You are sure he is a boy?" The dragon asked.

Sesi held the child to her breast and reached down to part the boy's slit. The tip of his infantile penis poked free; though below it was the same entrance she had found on Oam, "To be truthful, I do not know. He has a penis yet he also has this..." Then she went quiet and glanced to Oam.

She had never shared her thoughts with her husband, he had been so lost in the throws of pleasure that he hadn't realized her question. He stared back at her with eyeridges drawn together in curiosity. She glanced back to the dragon as he spoke, "You say he may be both?"

She nodded, then with a softer voice, told him, "You may all be."

The Black God reared back and snarled, then snapped at Sesi, "You include me in that assessment?" Oam had stepped back, away from them both, his back to the blackened wall of the bedroom and stared in fear.

"I do, God. I have seen your manhood well enough, but I never looked close enough to find the rest. Have you?" She asked. She knew she was as good as dead now, he would shred her, eat her, rape her, step on her; whatever he wished. So she spoke boldly, "I would look if you would allow it God."

The dragon was silent, his eyes glaring with fierce fire within. She had never seen the violet so bright, like the constant tear of lightning across the sky. She never took her eyes from his though, never looked away, if she would live, she had to look back, if she would die she would not shame herself.

At last those eyes softened and he spoke, "No."

"No?" She asked.

"No I have never looked. My mother named me a man and I never inquired further." He glanced down at himself, toward his slit, then back up to her, "What does it matter if I am or am not?"

She didn't know for certain, but she had her suspicions, "The mother makes the child. You may plant your crops on stone or clay, but only tilled soil will grow tall wheat. You plant your seed in humans and they grow these." She gestured toward her husband, "What would grow if planted within you?"

Again the dragon sat in silence, musing on the thought, then when he spoke it was with curious amusement, "And who would dare to make a wife of a god?"

For that she had a ready answer, "I, would that I had the tools to accomplish it."

He laughed outright and grinned a violent toothy grin, "Indeed you would I suppose, reaper." He then glanced down at himself and reached to spread his slit. Within she saw the tip of his penis, tucked nicely away at the top of the cleft; below it an entrance, just like her husband, just like her child, "Oam..." The dragon's voice was hesitant, then at last firm, "I require your seed."

Her husband would have fallen over had he not already been pressed to the wall, "Me, God?" He squeaked, startled and frightened, confused and excited. Sesi already saw the rising spire in her husband's clothes.

"I think you will do just fine Oam." Sesi said and the dragon laughed.

9

The eggs were large, as tall as Sesi and nearly as wide. Twelve of them in total slid from the Black God's sex. The dragon was left exhausted and sore; every muscle had hurt and she had trouble curtailing her fire to protect the human and dragon kin priests in the room. Oam was the father and a proud one at that; he had sired gods. When they hatched six months later, fully realized dragons were born, each as majestic and beautiful as their mother and father. They would never be quite as large as the Black God, but perhaps the next generation sired by his godly children would give him what he wanted.

Sesi was gifted the entire castle to herself as queen and even ranked above her own husband. He didn't seem to mind however; Oam had sired gods. Karkaggon left them two years later with her children fully grown and another clutch swelling in her womb. Sesi had begged the dragon to stay, but he rightly pointed out that a dragon child needs to feed far too much and twelve had strained the stores so far that they had begun to feast on human and dragon kin flesh.

"I promise you, Reaper, some day I will return for you and give you the gift you so deserve." He told her before he left and she just stared back at him with a coy smile and her stomach in a flutter.

Afterword

It is unknown if Karkaggon ever returned for Sesi, but evidence shows she ruled for two under years yet no evidence of a tomb or death marker ever surfaced. The dragon kin and humans joined together as a single people and eventually formed many of the smaller tribes burrowed in the Sky Wall to this day. We do know that after that period the dragon plague spread, devastating what little was left of civilization. Only through inbreeding did the dragon plague ever truly vanish; yet still we can find evidence of dragon fresh caves in the high mountains.

Nothing is known of Oam, dragon kin only live to be at most one fifty, so he likely died well in to the middle of Queen Sesiccia's reign. There were no stone etchings found depicting him, it may be that he never actually existed, or perhaps that he drew the queen's ire and she had his name erased from history. Excavations of the mountain ruins did uncover a rather exact depiction of the mating pool described in the story. No evidence of the original pool however could be found as the supposed great hall was long since buried under rock-slides when the top of the mountain collapsed.

By this point in history the Fae folk had all died out hundreds of years before and whatever fae blood survived in the Stonehart men, it had to be weakening. The fae blood is also likely what allowed Sesiccia to live for such a long reign, if all told true she would have been two hundred and twenty when she finally vanished and could have lived much longer.

The reason behind the collapse of Stonehart is unknown. Eight hundred years after the arrival of Karkaggon the society vanished. There are no mass graves, no etchings of disaster or beast. There are stories of other queens that came after Sesiccia, but nothing of note to suggest why the valley was abandoned. To this day there can still be found veins of hematite and galena in the different mountains surrounding it and the lands are quite fertile so it is not for lack of resources.