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The Dragon in the Deep

By Shalion

Commissioned By Nixx

Chapter One

The air inside the cave was stale and reeked of mouldering waste. Selina pulled her neck cloth tighter about her face and adjusted the buckles around her waist which were currently the only things between her and a deadly fall onto the jagged stalagmites below her. Fortunately, the way down was lit with lanterns by those who had come before her, but there was only so much light oil could bring to the mammoth darkness which lay under the earth. The scientist sweated on her face and under her blouse. Selina wasn't used to this much physical exertion, but she would do anything to get to where she was headed. The find of the century, perhaps of the millennium was just below her. Selina prayed it was still alive, somehow.

Steel tipped boots struck the limestone of the cave with a clang and even a few sparks which cast tiny shadows of their own in the gloom. Selina waited for her partner Israel and the three interns she'd brought along to help with note taking and menial labor. She leaned against a jutting cone shaped protrusion of rock impatiently as she waited. With excruciating slowness, one of the interns had to be untangled from his lead rope. Unfortunately, only two of her class had had any spelunking experience and Selina hadn't wanted to come down here understaffed. "For Heaven's sake, lower him down if you have to, just get him down here!" Selina called up to the laboring men, her voice resonating as if she were in a cathedral.

After what seemed like two days of traveling under the earth, Selina, Israel and their charges reached the forward camp. It was nothing to speak of, just a few tents, an assortment of crates and barrels filled with basic supplies like fresh water, pickles and salted meat, all illuminated by a half dozen dirty smoke stained lamps. Presently, a brown skinned man came forward to meet Selina from where he'd been reclining in a canvas chair reading a book. "Selina Brown, I take it?"

Selina shook hands with the man, looking about the camp and studying what she could see. "Yes." she said simply, and her eagerness breeding rudeness, added, "So where is it?"

The explorer chuckled, "My young lady, there will be plenty of time for business." He reached down to the top of a barrel and retrieved a small tin cup, "Why don't you sit down and have a cup of tea, it must have been a grueling trip down here."

Selina's upper lip twitched. Being called "young lady" rankled, but the man was right in saying there was time. The creature had apparently waited at least 300 years now, it could wait a few more minutes. "Very well." she said briskly and took a seat opposite the man who returned to his and crossed his legs. Selina waved her hand at Isreal who began directing the interns to unload the supplies and instruments they'd brought along with them. "So," she said to the man across from her, "why don't you tell me about her?"

The man, whose name was Cole, described his journey into the earth. On a simple mission to map this region of subterranean caverns, Cole had broken into a previously sealed and unknown chamber. It had been sheer accident of course, the climber's peg which had been hammered into the stone mysteriously gave way, nearly causing Cole's death the way he described it. Selina was sure that the smug man was exaggerating, but she let him continue. Upon closer inspection, there seemed to be a draft coming from behind the stone, thus Cole and his team had endeavored to excavate an opening into the unknown chamber and shortly thereafter, they had made the startling discovery. "...And there she was." said Cole, lifting his little tin cup of hot tea. "A dragon and in perfect condition too. At first, I had thought it was some sort of geminate collection, but there was no mistaking the wings and the claws. That and the fact that she was breathing."

"Breathing?" asked Selina incredulously. No one at the university had bothered to say that they would be dealing with a live specimen.

"Oh yes." said Cole. "I held up a mirror to her snout when I thought that I'd heard something and sure enough, it fogged up."

Selina almost dropped the silly tin that she was holding. "My God..." she whispered. Quickly setting the cup aside, the woman bolted upright. "I must see her immediately."

Cole waved a thickly muscled arm, "Oh, I'm sure there'll be plenty of time for..."

Selina took several steps forward and yanked on the extended arm. "I must be allowed to see this dragon immediately, time may be of the essence!"

The man looked like he was about to say more but thought better of it upon inspecting Selina's face. "Alright. If you'll follow me..."

The opening was small, just large enough for Cole to squeeze through. Selina had slightly more room, but the interns carrying the baggage behind her had the most difficulty. Thankfully the passage did not extend more than a couple feet before they came into a low ceilinged chamber.

The floor was tilted 15 degrees from level and Selina found herself placing her hand on a wall for balance. As if picking up on her thoughts, Israel said from behind. "Do you suppose that the ground has shifted over time?"

"It is a distinct possibility. I'm just wondering how she got in here to begin with." said Selina without turning about. It was something of a struggle to keep up with the explorer ahead of the group of scientists. Despite the fact that they were several hundred feet underground, this chamber had been strung up with lanterns. So Selina was able to get a good view of the dragon when at last she came upon it.

The dragon lay on its side at the terminal end of the chamber, looking for all the world like a discarded bit of rubbish. The image was accentuated by the ruffled and ragged state of the wings which were cluttered about the body of the dragon. Smooth leather skin gleamed in the lantern light, however, almost as if it were oiled. The creature was at least as large as the largest horse Selina had ever seen, if perhaps more slender in the forequarters and with thicker haunches. And slithering away from the inert form was a long but thickly muscled tail. "Incredible." breathed the scientist before all but sprinting to the body.

Cole uttered some protest and raised a hand, but Selina strode right past him and fell to her knees beside the large animal, apparently sleeping the ages away beneath the ground. The way the dragon was posed, it seemed stricken down and broken, but on closer examination, the configuration of limbs, all six of them, seemed more like a childing having stumbled out of bed and remained sleeping as they fell. The expression on the long muzzled face was serene, as if she could awake at any moment, and yet there was a heaviness also. Hurricanes and earthquakes must have past multiple times without interrupting this ages long slumber. With trembling hand, Selina reached out to touch the skin of the dragon.

"Dr. Cook!" called both Cole and Israel simultaneously, but Selina's hand was already in contact. Hand on the smooth leather skin of the dragon's ribs, the scientist felt that the skin was not oily at all, but dry and smoother than her own. The cool flesh gave at her touch, but instantly she could tell this was not some dead thing, life beat on somehow under her fingers despite centuries spent in darkness.

"I am fine!" Selina called back, to soothe the protective natures of the man-animals behind her. However, her mind was absorbed with all of the implications of finding a real live dragon in a time when even their past existence was beginning to be questioned by the light of modern science. "I must proceed with the utmost care." she thought to herself. Selina stood and looked back, meeting the questioning faces behind her with confidence and determination. "Mr. Cole, have you found any entrance to the surface from this chamber?"

Cole, for the first time since she'd met him, looked mildly ill at ease. "There is some water flowing into a puddle in the opposite corner." he said, raising a finger to the corner in question, "But I've found no passage for a man to explore. It is possible that this place once opened onto the surface, but now that passage is closed."

"But can it be reopened?" asked Selina, silently pondering the importance of the water and what sustenance if any the dragon had required during its incarceration in the earth. "We must get her back to the university so I can do a full examination and I would rather not drag her back along the rough passage I just had to endure."

"I don't think..." began Cole, but his voice died away when he was met with the woman's harsh gaze. "I mean, I'll speak with my surface team. Maybe we can track the source of the water. If its trickling in here from a surface reservoir, maybe we can..."

"Very well, get to it." said Selina brusquely, turning back to the dragon, which slumbered on, unknowing of the people speaking of its fate. "Israel." she said and momentarily, the man was at her side.

"Doctor." he said, bending over, also wide eyed, above the dragon's body.

"Let us begin with photographs. I trust none of the interns have broken the glass plates on the way down here?"

"I would think not." said Israel, setting his heavy backpack on the ground and rummaging through it for the lenses, wooden picture box and tripod. "Their final grade depends on it."

"Then let us begin..." said Selina without further ceremony.

* * *

The sun shone through large windows in the department of Biology of Oxford University. Fossilized remains and stuffed manikins of extinct and living animals were on display in the various rooms and offices of the complex, but none of them were receiving very much attention at this time. The faces of students and even teachers seemed instead plastered against the glass which barred them from entering the now forbidden central courtyard where several plain canvas tents had been erected. That fact, however did not veil the fact that a creature out of the distant past now lay slumbering mere yards away from those gifted with the opportunity to attend the foremost authority of the new field of biological sciences on the planet. Not a single student or instructor doubted that this was the best place in the world for such a discovery to be made...

Selina reclined in a canvas seat not dissimilar to the one Cole had taken during her underground excursion now three months behind her. She sipped strong tea from a porcelain cup and wiped the sweat from her brow. Across from her, the dragon slept its endless sleep.

Now visible in the light, the dragon appeared both more magnificent and less so. Now the dragon's hide had been cleaned of the dirt and grime which had accumulated on it and its limbs were no longer akimbo. Care had been taken to fold the phalanges and membranes of the wings to the creature's back, and the dragon had been laid on her side where she now rested on a great padded futon. The long neck was stretched forward and supported by additional sturdy thick cushions. The creature gleamed regally in the light and looked for all the world like some sleeping dragon empress, like from the old stories out of the East. But the creature had also lost much of the mystique it had possessed when Selina had first laid eyes on it.

In the time since the dragon's hidden chamber had been breached by following the passage of water down to it and the dragon herself hauled once more into the light of day, Selina had performed every catological procedure she knew of. The dragon's teeth and claws had been measured, the dimensions and range of motion of each limb, the visible configuration of muscles which still bulged healthily under the smooth mottled green skin. Skin and tissue samples had been collected and viewed under microscope as well as preserved in formaldehyde. Claw and tooth shavings had been taken and mouth and cloaca had been explored as well as possible with what modern tools were available. Thousands of drawings had already been produced by the best hands Selina had at her disposal. But perhaps the most striking of these had come from when they had pried open the dragon's eyes to reveal the pale blue irises which looked blindly upward, but still maintained an unknowing power to them.

These things and more Selina had done, but there were still so many questions left unanswered. The secret of the dragon's remarkable hibernation remained unanswered and the physicists were telling her now that the creature's wing span was not adequate to enable flight. Well, Selina would have given her left arm to see the creature in flight, or even semi-conscious at this point. There was only so much one could do with a sleeping body. There were even increasing adjuncts in favor of autopsy at this point. Selina shuddered at the thought. Here was a survivor out of time, a passenger who defied all of the odds to reach her here and now, and her peers wanted to cut her open like a fish to see how she ticked. "How short sighted..." she thought and sipped her tea.

And yet, that might be exactly what would happen, and sooner rather than later. The university owned the body now and the dragon's fate was not entirely in Selina's hands. Without any proof that the dragon might at some point regain consciousness, well, it would prove more useful as a specimen than an indefinite guest of the university. And while the dragon had exhibited some minor changes since being extracted, such as an increase in body temperature and certain involuntary actions such as iris contractions and even the ability to swallow water, there seemed to be no indication that the dragon will recover any time soon. Selina snorted and sipped the last of her tea. She had been so sure that if she simply allowed the creature to warm in the sun, the exothermic reactions would kick start the awakening process.

"Perhaps you've been asleep too long, my friend." said Selina to the dragon, feeling infinitely regretful. The woman placed her cup aside and walked over to where the dragon rested, still breathing with the slowness of ages, and placed her hand on the dragon's sun warmed flank. "Are you the last of your kind, my green-skinned angel?" asked the scientist, who began to stroke the skin across the dragon's ribs and abdomen, feeling the change from firm to soft under her fingers. "Will your species never know the sun again?"

Selina felt like weeping. She knew that she could not keep the board much longer from tearing apart this natural wonder, this one of a kind marvel, so much rarer and more precious than any building crafted by man, or any natural edifice by God, in a vain attempt to grasp her secrets. Her hand drifted lower down the dragon's belly, the texture of the skin subtly changing as she reached the area between the thick, powerful thighs which must have once launched this beauty into the skies of a medieval world to craft legends that would outlast her race. Selina had already examined every inch of the dragon's exterior already, but being along with her and having her hand placed just so with its careless wandering, the scientist suddenly recalled some vague bit of old dragon lore which she must have read at some point in the last few months of research. Selina daren't lift her spirits too much with the sudden hope, but instead removed herself from the dragon's couch and went briskly to the library where she read dusty tomes well into the night.

"Have the chloroform and antiseptic ready." said Selina through the paper mask she wore. "This is exploratory surgery, not a necropsy. Hand me the scalpel, Israel, I shall make the first incision."

Selina stood beneath the warm glow of a dozen lanterns in addition to the sunlight coming in through the large windows of the clean, bare wooden chamber she had prepared for this event. The young woman's hands trembled slightly as she hovered the blade over the dragon's abdomen, knowing that this had to be done and yet dreading the deed itself, as if she might be struck down for damaging such a magnificent work of God.

And yet, her heart was more easy now than it had been several weeks ago. This was not to be the end of the dragon. In fact, Selina hoped that it might be a brand new beginning for the species. It was a small hope, true, but a real one. She cocked her head for a last look at the dragon's head, which lay some distance away, her muzzle draped with a cloth loaded with chloroform, to hedge against the possibility of her awakening suddenly in response to acute danger and against any pain she might still feel, even if she were unresponsive. Her great wings and limbs and tail all were strapped heavily down, her abdomen, which they were to be examining and perhaps even modifying today, was scrubbed clean and stained with brown iodine at the incision point. Selina took a deep breath, prayed for forgiveness and for the life of the dragon and lowered her blade.

The library had been able to give a great deal of information about dragons. However, the problem was that about half of that information was based on rumor or plain fancy. However, there were many real accounts of encounters with dragons and even information on the life cycles of dragons, who were kept or worshipped in pre-modern times. There were so many accounts of female egg layings and 'virgin miracles' with regards to dragons, that Selina could not discount the great possibility that female dragons were capable of producing viable eggs for extended periods of time, even with no contact with any male dragons. Selina knew of creatures which were able to store the sperm of their partners and she guessed that the same was true of dragons. At least, that was her fervent desire that it be true. Because, if it was, then there was a possibility that this sleeping beauty might be able to save her race yet, even if she were no longer able to awaken herself. The trick lay in inducing the natural protocol somehow

Myths and rumor were no real basis for a biological assay, let alone an invasive procedure such as the one Selina intended, but her research gave strong indication that the laying of eggs in dragons was related in someway to heat and the organ which produced the flammable bile dragons were known for and feared in the past. Thus Selina had designed a device, a steel receptacle with some internal ductwork, in hopes of rerouting both the heat and bile of the fire organ to trick the dragoness's body into releasing new eggs and stored sperm. It was a long shot, but faced with the alternative of pulling her apart, Selina thought that this alternative was best, even if it only bought the dragoness more time.

The skittering of pencils worked behind Selina as she placed her hands inside the dragon's belly, groping the ropey tendrils of life with a delicacy she had shown nothing in her life. "Here, just as in the old diagrams of slain dragons, the fire bladder." Selina said in a clinical tone, not letting her emotions rule her. "The ovaries, uterus and this part..." Selina spied but did not dare touch a dark purple growth on the uterine wall. "Must store the sperm." Selina's brow was wiped for her as the operation continued. But aside from the fire organ with its ducts leading up into the chest cavity and away from the operation, there was nothing of huge importance. There were a couple organs which were unknown and the dragon did not have anything resembling a liver or a pancreas. The intestine did seem littered with a number of small growths, rather like the appendix of a human, but nothing could be gleaned of their function, not even speculatively. Finally, with her gloves stained with dark dragon blood, Selina felt that the dragoness had been open long enough. "Bring out the catalyst and make sure to wipe it down once more before we insert it." Selina carefully inserted the now cumbersome and bulky looking steel cylinder into the dragon's belly, nestling it with the intestines.

"Israel." said Selina and the man moved from where he'd been monitoring the dragon's heart rate and breathing. "Hold this in place while I detach the fire duct." Wordlessly he complied as the woman cut the ducts and pinched them closed before moving the opening over to the device. Selina held her breath as she stitched the opening into the small port designed to interface the biological with the mechanical. For the exit, she lanced a small hole in the intestine and stitched that to the contraption as well. Selina hoped that once the reactive nature of the fire bile was spent, it could harmlessly trickle into the intestine to be digested and excreted. Although it was a simple procedure, it was fraught with risk, and Selina was glad when it was over. "That's it. Close her up." And with relief the scientist moved away and let Israel finish what she'd started. Despite the fact that she was hopefully sparing the life of the dragon and perhaps her entire race, Selina felt like a butcher. And when the dragon's belly was again closed, Selina saw the ominous, unsightly bulge of the new mass added to the dragon's abdomen and had to struggle not to vomit right there and then. "Please, let this work." she prayed and exited the operating room before anyone could stop her.

* * *

Pain. That was the first thing she was aware of. Inside the dreaming abyss, there was a trembling and then a resurgence. Kelnixxdriia looked up for the first time in an age spent alone among her memories. "Is it time?" wondered the dragoness, she had lost hope so long ago that the time would ever come. And yet, this did not feel right at all. Rising higher and higher, the dragon was aware of more and more, a deep pain cut through her body and an unknown heat radiating from the source of discomfort. Something was very wrong, Kelnixxdriia knew.

The dragoness could only assume that her body was under attack, yet the hibernation had been so long and she'd become lost entirely within her own mind. Her legs were as the roots of mountains, the nerves had gone cold and numb. Her heart beat inside her breast, so not all was lost, but, her body was asleep as yet. Kelnixxdriia focused all of her will, or what she could summon of it, even her mind was still partially asleep. With supreme effort, she caused motion in one of her eyelids. She saw nothing but blurs and moving shadows. Her eye was unaccustomed to focusing any longer and it defied her every will. She saw light shadows and then dark shadows, and then light again. It took awhile for the dragon to realize that this was day and night passing. Groggily, Kelnixxdriia closed the useless slit into the world. Focusing on her heart and the deadly pain and unknown heat in her belly, the dragon focused on rousing herself little by little.

Some time passed. Somehow, incredibly, Kelnixxdriia was not already dead. Though wrapped in hibernation sickness of an extent unknown even by rumor, the predator which had obviously ravaged her belly had not already done away with her. This in itself was remarkable, but even more, Kelnixxdriia felt food and water slide down her gullet for the first time in what seemed like a world's age. Even the muscles in her throat were lazy, but still a paste of what tasted like blood and grain, such as might be offered a sick hatchling, was massaged down the length of her neck. Kelnixxdriia did not know what to make of it, other than perhaps some wandering clan of dragons had found her and taken pity, which was quite unusual in itself. She thought this was the case for a long while, but slowly the realization that these did not feel like dragon hands on her neck and frequently touching her body.

Kelnixxdriia's vision remained poor and she could do little more than twitch a toe. The world seemed to race and swirl around her, but the pace slowed notch by notch as her mind returned from the depths of retreat. In that time, the pain receded from her tummy and vanished entirely, but not the strange foreign heat inside. It felt strange in the extreme and the dragoness could not force herself to ignore it. She thought her belly wound had become hot, at first, but this heat saturated her insides, not the wound itself, and furthermore, it did not spread out over time, it simply sat there, annoying her to no end.

At some point Kelnixxdriia attempted to stretch her wing and the limb responded, weakly and sluggishly, but still it responded. Suddenly, the world seemed to spiral out of control. She was being manhandled and lifted. The dragoness struggled as weakly as a newborn kitten, but still just as rapidly as the movement had come on, she was restrained somehow so that she could not move her limbs. When Kelnixxdriia opened her eyes, she saw elongated shadows moving about her, set on a multi-hued background that was utterly unfamiliar, even in pattern. As a last resort, she tried to spew fire onto the shapes moving around her, but when she reached for the old fire, nothing happened, her mouth remained dry and cool. She tried again, and again, squeezing her abdominal muscles. Nothing happened.

At least nothing outwardly happened, for as the dragoness attempted to drench her enemies in flame, suddenly the heat in her belly bloomed into a literal fire that was intense and on the verge of pain. She had to stop or she would begin to cook her insides. Shortly after that, Kelnixxdriia knew a fearsome hunger that was equal or greater than the last time she had been gravid. The hunger was so distracting that she fell limp as the shadows gripped her again and moved her out into bright sunlight. Even when the shadows released her and her bonds were removed, Kelnixxdriia could think of nothing except the hunger, she felt weak with it; she thought she might die of it. She thanked the stars when more blood paste began to flow into her mouth. She no longer needed anyone to massage it down, in fact, she couldn't get enough. She nursed at the flow like a furry mammal infant until that too lapsed and left Kelnixxdriia wretched and wanting more. Still, her body seemed to have exhausted itself and the dragoness could not resist the pull of sleep, natural sleep this time.

When Kelnixxdriia became aware again, she knew she'd been fed at least once in the time since she lost consciousness; she could taste fresh blood in her mouth. However, after her rest, she found her body to be responding much more to her commands than before. She was still weak, but she was beginning to feel more like herself again. When she opened her eyes, the blurry outline of the world snapped into the clarity she was used to. Eagerly, she opened her claws and flexed the digits, her hind paws swept backwards, scratching furrows into the turf under her. She opened her wings gratefully and cupped a light breeze blowing across her back, the phalanges supporting the massive membrane moving like an enormous webbed hand. Kelnixxdriia lifted her head and yawned massively, rows of serrated teeth gleaming in the sunlight.

Absently, Kelnixxdriia scratched at her tummy with a forepaw. With her pads, though, she detected a raised, pebbly area where there ought to have been smooth skin. She arched her long neck to see what this addition was. The dragoness squawked loudly at the sight of a massive scar running straight up her belly. It was already fully healed, she noticed, but the memory of the burning pain still seemed fresh. And Kelnixxdriia had never seen such a scar, so perfectly straight and uniform. All of the scars she'd seen had usually been curved and often knobby with the extent of the damage. As far as scars went, this was pretty benign, despite the disturbing size of it. But what's more, her belly seemed distended for some reason. Placing her hand upon it, Kelnixxdriia winced at the sensation. Deep inside, the heat seemed to grow minutely and the dragon felt something large and hard within her, almost like an egg, except this thing was larger than even several eggs. The dragoness removed her hand and laid back down. She was frightened.

Surely some sort of affliction had come upon her, but Kelnixxdriia knew of nothing that might cause a large mass to appear in her belly, that and with her feeling so... fine. It was most unusual. Eventually the dragoness lifted her head again, with more resolve. She knew that she could not lie here, even with such an odd affliction or possible injury. She felt her strength coming back to her regardless. The best thing to do was to move and recuperate someplace safe where she could get her bearings.

The effort to rise was greater than she imagined. Although her limbs were responding now, the majority of her old strength seemed to have gone out of them. The dragon groaned as she pressed against the ground, planting her hind paws and slowly rising. She winced as she felt the... the something inside her shift. As a reflex, her fire-bladder pulsed and she felt the weird heat inside her abdomen increase and then fade. Kelnixxdriia found her footing regardless, however, and studied her environment. It looked at first, unremarkable.

She seemed to have landed in a simple wood, though it seemed remarkably clean for the average wood. There was none of the typical debris like fallen branches or drifts of leaves and decaying matter. There was only a green lawn and trees about. Birds chirped merrily, that was usual, but the musk of larger creatures was missing when Kelnixxdriia sniffed the air. She took a few wobbling steps forward and then leaned against a nearby tree. The hunger was coming on her again. Already, despite the confusion of earlier days, she had begun to associate the pulsing of her fire bladder with oncoming hunger. It was the most bizarre phenomenon and Kelnixxdriia did not know what to make of it, just as she did not know what to make of most of her stimuli recently.

But regardless of logic, Kelnixxdriia could not mistake the results. Her belly seemed to yawn empty inside her, overriding the heat and the presence the foreign body inside her. The dragoness licked her chops. What she would give for a nice deer right now. She felt like she could eat the entire thing. "Where was that succulent blood paste coming from?" Kelnixxdriia wondered with sudden intensity. "Where are the dragons who were caring for me?"

Hunger drove the dragoness to stir and she lurched drunkenly across the close trimmed grass until she could rest against another thick tree trunk. Breathing heavily, she lifted her head up once more with effort. The hibernation sickness seemed to have turned her muscles to jelly, but slowly, she knew, sensation and strength would flow into her nerves once more. However, Kelnixxdriia became much more concerned with something else when she lifted her head. Through the trees, she could now see that the strange wood came to a stop not far ahead. Summoning her strength, she plowed forward, forcing her recalcitrant limbs to obey.

Coming to the end of the wood, Kelnixxdriia's way was suddenly blocked. To her surprise, she recognized the object which stood in her way. It was a human thing, a fence, to be precise. Except that typically, she remembered that fences were made of stone rather than iron, which humans had found too precious to use as building material. It was exceedingly strange to find a wall in the middle of a wood. If she were not feeling so ill, she'd think nothing of it and simply fly over...

The thought died in progress for as Kelnixxdriia lifted her head, she could see that the fence did not simply terminate some distance from the ground. The top of the metal frame of the wall was attached to sturdy looking rope laced with yet more iron wire. The rope was crisscrossed like a fisherman's net and draped from the fence top to the nearby trees. Startled, the dragoness looked all about her and above, more netting lay everywhere she saw, stretching up to lay on top of the canopy which had hidden it before. "No..." Kelnixxdriia thought with hopeless confusion as she began to hobble along the fence, looking for some gap, some way out.

"What have the humans done?" the dragon worried as she passed tree after tree and only finding her way barred by an unending iron fence. Only humans could have done such a feat, only humans were industrious in this fashion. But if they had gone so far as to attempt to entrap a dragon, they have truly taken their rebellion too far. But Kelnixxdriia's heart fell when at last she came back to the place she started, having traversed the perimeter of what she now realized was her cage. She had no doubt that the netting lay over every inch of sky within as well. Weakly, she collapsed against a tree, her paws curling inward against the pain in her belly. How could she have survived an age of slumber, only to awaken into subjugation by the slave race? Sniffing, she realized that the cloying stink of human mammal was everywhere, she should have realized it sooner if her mind was still not so clouded. Legs aching with the recent effort, sleep seemed preferable to the present reality despite the hunger which tormented her and so she let it take her, praying the while that she might not awake again.

But awake she did and this time to the smell of fresh blood and bone. Kelnixxdriia opened her eyes to find a freshly killed carcass not a dozen yards away. Instinct took control of her and she leaped from her prone position, sprinting a couple steps and then launching herself the rest of the way to fall upon the dead beast. It seemed to be some sort of domestic beast, such as the humans kept, a goat, the dragon thought vaguely was the correct term. Except this variety was larger and fatter than what she recalled. Not that Kelnixxdriia thought very much about the nature of the beast as she eagerly flensed it and devoured it one large chunk of meat at a time. The dragoness stripped the corpse in a little over two minutes, leaving nothing behind but bone and sinew. Normally such a meal would have sated her for a couple days, but afterwards she found herself still licking the bones, wanting more. It was probably just hibernation sickness again.

Only when the meat was gone was Kelnixxdriia able to take stock of her surroundings again. When she did look up, however, it was to her surprise to find several humans standing outside of the fence watching her avidly. They were dressed in the most queer fashion, as far as Kelnixxdriia knew of human fashion, and several seemed to be scribbling on wood planks they held in their hands. Anger flared in the dragoness for she knew that these were the ones responsible for placing her in this cage, never mind the fact that they had obviously given her the goat and possibly nursed her back to health as well. She opened her mouth to flame, but again nothing came forth. Her fire bladder pulsed and inside her belly the heat grew as if she were setting fire to her insides rather than exhaling it. She stopped when the sensation grew, but it was too late. The mass of the goat seemed to press on the source of the heat inside her distended abdomen, causing awkward sensations that the dragoness was not accustomed to. Something was even pressing on her lower regions, close to her bladder and uterus it seemed. The dragoness pressed a claw against her tummy where the long scar lay. The heat inside was causing secondary sensations, almost arousing in nature given the position of the thing inside her. Kelnixxdriia found she could do nothing until the stimulation passed and startlingly, she found that her cloaca had grown moist as the heat faded.

But as before, the fading heat brought with it renewed hunger. Just as suddenly as the heat had come one, it now felt like she had eaten nothing at all. Kelnixxdriia took a large thigh bone in her mouth and snapped it in half before beginning to chew it into swallowable pieces. She belched loudly as the bone and marrow went down which betrayed a lack of stomach volume that the dragoness was unable to feel. Only when she'd devoured half of the remaining skeleton was she able to to take stock of the humans outside again.

There were humans still watching her silently with their weird rounded pupils and making scratching noises on their pieces of wood. There were definitely more of them now, but Kelnixxdriia knew that at this moment she was impotent against them. She resolved herself to take the little remains of the goat and skulk off into the interior of the enclosure to be away from them, but then she saw two more humans approaching. The dragoness's slit pupiled eyes fastened onto the thing that they were dragging between them. It was another goat. It anything, it was even fatter than the one she'd just devoured nearly entirely. Heavy milk sacs dangled between its hind legs, probably it had just given birth, or was still pregnant. Kelnixxdriia licked her bloodstained chops as the humans brought it closer.

They arrived at a weird double gate thing set in the fence. When they opened the outer gate, Kelnixxdriia realized immediately that they would be able to pass through the fence without opening it by opening and closing the gates in turn. They shoved the goat inside the reception area and closed the gate. Then they were able to open the inner gate by some unseen mechanism and then shove the goat inside the pen with a long stick. The dragoness did not wait, nay she could not wait, not with the fire inside her belly prompting her to action.

When she leapt this time, her wings flared wide with a lifetime's skill and practice. Her pounce doubled in length with a single pump of the powerful muscles mounted behind her shoulders and stretching down to her deep chest. She landed on the fatty goat and tumbled with it for several feet, leaving the smaller creature broken and bloody beneath her. Her fangs found the huge milk sacs and tore, releasing a maddeningly delicious mixture of blood and milk onto her tongue. She lapped and tore at the goat's midsection, gobbling it down with a ferocity unknown to her. It felt so good to have this heavy, soft flesh sliding down her throat to nestle down inside her, filling her completely. She belched again, feeling her stomach walls distend painfully, but the pleasure of eating was too great to stop. She stretched her stomach out, filling it with meat and blood, refusing to stop because the urge to eat was far too strong.

By the time she'd scraped the last large chunks of meat off from behind the goat's skull, Kelnixxdriia was thoroughly glutted. She felt mammoth and turgid and simply collapsed onto her side where she was. Her breath came in long rasps as she lazily licked her paws and muzzle clean. Between her thighs, she could feel her belly, round and enormous. The skin was stretched taut over a mass that expanded her midsection to be much wider than her rib cage. It hurt so much and yet, Kelnixxdriia felt so much at ease. She could feel her vastly distended stomach pressing the hard thing inside her lower down, the pressure of it resulting in a luridly semi-sexual feeling that continued on and on. The dragoness had never eaten like this before, and she had never felt like this before after a large meal. She moaned softly and did not care that the humans were still watching her from behind the cursed fence. More easily than ever since she'd awoken from hibernation, she slipped into sleep and had pleasant dreams of flying.

Kelnixxdriia slept for two days. She knew this because she awoke at some point during the night and stumbled sleepily through the confined space available to her, following the scent of water. What the dragoness found was a neat circular stone basin set in the ground. A bronze tube of impeccable straightness and smoothness fed water into the basin from some sort of contraption set outside the fence. The dragoness had no mind to decipher the puzzle however, instead simply dunking her face into the water to soothe a great thirst, once again filling the corners of her stomach to capacity. Then she slept once more.

When she awoke again, it was in the twilight hours before dawn. She lifted her head out of the water she had at some point crawled into, though she had no memory of it. The stone basin was large enough for her to submerge her entire body and was delightfully cool on her skin. Kelnixxdriia yawned and stretched aching limbs. It was not the same day, she knew instinctively. She'd spent the entire day previous soaking in the pool like some enormous crocodile, with only nostrils and the top of her head exposed.

Arching her neck around, she again took stock of herself, feeling she could take nothing for granted in this place or with these strange, menacingly advanced humans. The spherical mass of her tummy had decreased greatly, having regained its normal concavity. That in itself was slightly strange for she did not feel any great urge to relieve herself. but looking closer, she thought she spied something off about her body in a way that she could not at first place her claw upon. She did not realize what it was until she had climbed out of the basin and stood upright on all four feet.

The change in vantage point caused a second of vertigo as the dragoness's head came to rest at a position a couple inches higher than she was accustomed. "What in the Heavens?" marveled the dragoness and she turned her head this way and that, twisting her neck around and stretching upwards. There was no doubt about it. She was taller and not by a little then she was only two days ago. Behind her neck, she could see that her shoulders were broader too, and her forelegs slightly thicker. She seemed to have increased in mass and expanded proportionally all over. After a few moment's shock, this new information slid into the dragoness's consciousness like a new puzzle piece.

Dragons came in various shapes and sizes Kelnixxdriia knew. There were multiple subspecies and even crossbreeds since most dragons were similar enough to breed with each other. There were, in fact, certain breeds of dragon who never stopped growing as long as they lived. It became a bother to feed themselves after a while, but a few did manage cleverly to do so, at least in legend and these frequently became of gigantic proportion, or so it was told. In the legends, these dragons lived productive and rich lives, at least until their greed consumed them, or they were betrayed and slain. A couple of the legends even said that they grew so massive that their wings were able to carry them to the stars and they departed the earthly realm entirely.

Kelnixxdriia knew a lot about her heritage, it was something that a dragon of good blood usually studied. And while there had been no mention of one of these dragons who were able to grow indefinitely, there was really no way to discount the presence of one in her own deep and convoluted ancestry. The dragoness had seemingly reached her full size by her fourth decade and resigned herself to the life of a modestly sized dragon and had never given any thought to the matter of largeness. However, now that she was presented with evidence to the contrary... Perhaps greatness did lie in store for her, even if it did come at the cost of great risk as well.

But the presentation of this natural ability could not have come at a better time. The humans could not hope to keep her here if she managed to grow. When she was large enough, she'd have the strength to tear apart their iron fence and netting. She would use their overconfidence against them and later they would wish they had killed her from the start! In fact, the timing of this gift could not be anything but sheer destiny in Kelnixxdriia's mind. For the first time since she had awoken, she felt confident and in control of her future. Her plan would take time naturally, but she had plenty of that...

Feedings came on odd days and soon it became routine for Kelnixxdriia to wait by the gate for a pair of humans to push and prod some hapless animal into the pen for her. Sometimes it was a goat, or a pig, or a sheep, but the type of prey mattered little to the dragoness. The humans starred with morbid fascination as she conducted her killing and then sated herself with animalistic ferocity, but all the dragoness cared about was the meat. The humans could look on for all she cared, soon there would be nothing they could do to stop her, she was sure.

Kelnixxdriia was, in fact, heavily overeating by dragon standards. A whole animal every two days and she did not have to expend any energy by flying or searching for prey. She might have been able to subsist on a single animal every ten days at her level of activity. The dragoness would have quickly grown fat on such a diet, but she never really showed it, for Kelnixxdriia was a growing girl. That extra mass was miraculously transformed into longer legs, thicker muscles and a glowing, sensuously smooth hide. Her tail elongated and thickened and the dragoness could feel her body flush with strength as she stretched and sharpened her claws on tree trunks within the privacy of the interior of the pen. The dragoness accumulated only a little fat, which was fine because she had become overly lean during the hibernation, most of the new weight manifested itself in muscle as her frame expanded in all directions. Most strangely of all, Kelnixxdriia found she had little need to eliminate. Maybe a fourth of the food she devoured was wasted in the traditional way, if that. It was some small convenience to be sure, and another sign that her body was fully exerting itself with the rapid growth.

Kelnixxdriia spent increasing periods of time shielding herself within the confines of the interior away from human eyes. As her height and bulk increased, the humans outside changed their expressions subtly. She could see it in their eyes and the way they held their bodies. They were frightened of her. This was a good thing, but the dragoness wanted to milk her free accommodations for as long as possible. She would let the humans make the first move, and they would surely underestimate how strong she was becoming.

It was very boring inside the cage. Kelnixxdriia could not sleep away all of the time that she was not killing some human domestic food beast. Stretching and pacing occupied some time, but the way she was growing, she did not seem to require much exercise to continue increasing the tone of her limbs and body. More, the growth of her bones caused aches and pains at odd times and the strength of her new muscle mass left her tense and restless. But there was almost no room to fly anywhere in the enclosure, not even near the fence; not without risk of crashing into either a tree or the fence itself. At first Kelnixxdriia increased the amount of time she spent pacing, but as the days piled into weeks and months, this proved to be inadequate.

Although she had so far resisted the urge to reveal anything other than her animal side to those who had caged her up like an animal, Kelnixxdriia needed some form of release to prevent insanity through boredom. Thus the dragoness took up singing and reciting the old poems she had memorized in a past age. They were all in the dragon tongue of course, but Kelnixxdriia came from a well blooded family and had had an excellent education. She started with her favorites, but she knew so many that it could keep her occupied for months without repetition.

One morning, as Kelnixxdriia reclined by the stone basin, carelessly dabbling her paws in the water, she sang an old ballad about a mighty king of dragons whose territory expanded across two horizons and more. It was a sad tale really, and cautioned against a dragon's natural propensity for greed and materialism. It was as she was singing this, however, that she spied a human coming towards her from outside the fence. Kelnixxdriia was always seeing humans come and go, stop and stare from outside so she took little notice of the female human.

The only thing that caught her attention was the scent of this particular human who seemed to hang about more than the other and the fact that she was carrying another of their odd contraptions. This thing she held was quite large. It was a wooden box with four spindly legs. On top were some bronze fittings of indiscernible function, but the centerpiece seemed to be a large black cylinder of a material the dragoness had not seen before. The human female set the box beside the fence and Kelnixxdriia stopped singing and turned to look at her.

The female human looked crestfallen for several minutes as the dragoness examined her and her strange contraption, but she refused to leave and eventually Kelnixxdriia decided to resume her singing. The human female fiddled with something on the unfathomable thing, and Kelnixxdriia heard it produce a tiny whirring noise, but it seemed to generate no other effect. The dragoness chalked this behavior up to the inscrutable fancies of humans and continued to occupy herself. However, very often when she was singing, the dragoness would find this female out by the fence with her strange little box, even when it was late in the night. The dragoness could only snort in derision and at the folly of human beings.

Kelnixxdriia kept track of her growth by carving notches into the trunk of a convenient tree in the center of her enclosure where she was sure it was safe from prying eyes. By the time that her tally marks had added up to half again her original height, her diet of one animal every two days was beginning to seem insufficient. Hunger began to gnaw at her on the odd days, true hunger independent from the frenzied compulsion that came upon her when her fire bladder was squeezed. The dragoness took to pacing back and forth by the gate, trying to catch the eye of the humans who walked past in and out of the adjacent buildings. Sometimes she gripped the fence itself with paws that were so much larger than they had been only a few months ago. She did this very carefully, for she did not want to test her real strength on the iron bars just yet, lest the humans notice any damage to the craft that was meant to imprison her.

But the diet was not altered... at least not by the regular staff who brought out the pigs, goats and sheep. There was one human, that female who seemed so interested in Kelnixxdriia and carried that little box around when she was singing and reciting poetry. She always came at night, and always on the odd days when the dragoness was most hungry. By herself, she would drag a lumbering beast of great size, cattle, Kelnixxdriia had recalled, but their size had greatly increased from what she'd known.

Since the human female seemed to be acting independently, Kelnixxdriia was careful to hide the evidence of these extra feedings in the interior of the enclosure where she devoured the large animals down to the hooves and horns, crunching the bones for days as necessary. It certainly helped fill the long gaps of time that needed occupying.

A cow carcass was a huge meal, even with Kelnixxdriia's increased bulk. On the nights they came, she swiftly killed the bloated animal and dragged it away. Even though each weighed almost half a ton, the dragoness found she could move the whole thing without much effort, even if it was yet too bulky to carry outright. Eyeing the huge abdomen of the beast, Kelnixxdriia would open her mouth and flame. Or rather, contract the muscles that used to produce flame for that ability had somehow been lost to her. But when she did so, the heat in her belly increased to an unpleasant burning deep inside her midriff and lower regions. It hurt, but she needed the pain for its aftereffects.

Kelnixxdriia's mouth would begin to salivate heavily soon after the heat had reached its climax and begun to fade. Her hunger would increase tenfold and suddenly the cow's abdomen looked like the finest feasts out of the most excessive of dragon legends. It was so good to eat when she was like this, but only if there was enough to satisfy. Fortunately the fat cow with its hundreds of pounds of meat, adipose and intestines was still such a meal. But increasingly less so as the weeks past. At the start, a cow was good for at least three gorges, but by the time that Kelnixxdriia had spent an entire year inside the cage, four fifths of the cow would disappear into the dragon's gullet in a single feeding.

The secret feedings continued during the long months of imprisonment and by the last months, they had become the dragoness's primary source of sustenance. By then, Kelnixxdriia was twice as tall as she had been when she'd awoken and ten times as heavy. She was flush with muscle and had even put away a little fat which softened the outline of her ribs and cushioned her haunches and tail base. The humans were clearly startled by her size. The pigs and goats had started to come every three days and then swiftly every fourth then fifth day. It was an obvious attempt to slow her growth. But the actions of the dragon's secret liaison thwarted the attempts of whoever was attempting to starve her. The cows, which had so much more meat on them than the humbler farm animals, were able to sustain her, though, towards the end, even the loss of the paltry animals was becoming annoying.

The female human had started out with a single cow every week. When they cut down her regular supply to one animal per week, she brought two cows, three days apart. But it seemed that Kelnixxdriia's savior had overstepped her bounds. On the fourth week of double cows, one week after the anniversary of the dragon's awakening into imprisonment, the female human failed to appear when expected. Kelnixxdriia looked for her from inside the fence with all the acuity she could muster from her brilliant eyes, but there was no woman, and certainly no cow.

The dragoness waited for her the next day, then the day after that, then the day after that. By that time she was very hungry and more, she was annoyed at herself for longing to be fed as if she were some overgrown dog on a leash. But she was getting desperately hungry. She now bit a pig in half and swallowed it down in two bites. Licking her chops, she remained unsatisfied, even moments after the meat had settled in her now vastly larger stomach.

When an entire week had past and Kelnixxdriia had not even seen the female human, even when she tried summoning her by singing loud and piercing ballads normally reserved for the starts of clan wars, she knew that the woman was being kept away from her. There was simply no other explanation. She had obviously been committing a crime by bringing her food when her normal diet was being restricted. That was a shame, but Kelnixxdriia did not intend to sit by and allow herself to starve for on her current diet she surely would starve never mind continuing her spectacular growth.

Kelnixxdriia marched to the far end of the pen, away from the buildings. There were still lights on the distant hills, but the dragoness was fairly certain no casual observers were about. She had expected the humans to play their hand by force when she had grown to sufficient size, but starvation was an equal threat. But it was a relief actually that the time had come to escape and really, she had expected to be forced to this much longer ago. The dragoness reared up and placed her paws on the iron bars which had trapped her for so long. They were like straws in her palms. Tensing the massive muscles of her chest and shoulders, the dragon pulled the iron apart with effort, but not so much that it broke her, or even made her pant. The metal was strong, but it was far too thin to hold her any longer. The bars gave a pleasant twang as they snapped apart and with ease, Kelnixxdriia bent the posts down to kneel against the ground as she past the jagged opening and spread her wings. With hardly anymore noise she leaped and caught the air in her wings, hoisting herself up and into the cool night air.

Chapter 2

The overhang of rock several leagues south of Oxford was windy and cold, but at least it was dryer than standing in the rain pouring in from the coast. Kelnixxdriia curled in on herself, using her thickened tail as a cushion for her head, and tried to sleep. She belched softly, the noise barely audible over the sound of the storm passing by overhead. The cow she'd grabbed from a convenient field during her beeline away from the university had been on the small side, but it had been the largest she was confident in being able to carry away without stopping; she was still getting used to the proportions and strength of her growing body. The meat of it was still settling in her midsection. It was a long needed meal, but the dragoness longed for the bits that had fallen off the carcass as she'd eaten mid-flight.

The dense earthly feel of devouring raw meat hounded Kelnixxdriia's restless thoughts where she lay. She thought she should feel elated at her easy escape and newfound freedom, but she found that all she could think of was yet again filling her belly. "Is this what it means to be a giant?" she pondered, clutching her demanding midsection. "Is my existence to be nothing else from this point forward?" Kelnixxdriia had been a scholar of dragons in her time, in so much as dragons had scholars. The thundering and raging, the harems and treasure hoards of the Greats of the past, those had been songs and cautionary tales for the dragoness all her life. The realities of clan warfare and the struggle to keep her eggs safe from human assassins and rowdy territorial males had been the mainstream of her existence even unto the point she'd hidden underground from a rival clan from across the channel and the passage had closed behind her due to a mudslide.

But now... Now her body seemed intent on becoming something else, something out of those ancient songs. At first she had looked forward to the prospect, for the chance to strike back at her enemies, but now that she had escaped their power, the sudden and extreme changes she was experiencing seemed more frightening than anything else, especially the constant, mind numbing hunger that tore at her insides and erased rational thought. "Is this what being a giant means?" thought the dragon and chuckled to herself, "No wonder they all met violent or tragic ends."

When Kelnixxdriia laughed, she pressed a little too hard on her midsection, pressing her fire-bladder, which caused the heat in her nethers to grow again. The dragoness growled in contempt of the foreign body which had somehow invaded her during her long sleep, even before the hunger set in again. She got up and stretched, testing her wings against the capricious winds. There'd be no sleep tonight, not until she fed again. She hardly needed to jump before a powerful gust of wind took her off again.

"Where has the wilderness gone?" wondered Kelnixxdriia as she flew over the farms and houses of what had once been a mostly wild country. The forests seemed infected by a plague of humanity nowadays. Everywhere the dragoness flew there were the lights of lanterns twinkling below and so many cleared spaces for farms and houses. Once she caught sight of many lights in the distance, like stars fallen to earth and knew it was a human city, but one far larger than any Kelnixxdriia had known in the past. She could tell that easily, even when she was many miles away. Darkness would be her friend now, she knew, and she skirted the areas where lights gathered.

Though consciously she was aware that her stomach was more than half full of cow already, the hunger brought on by the heat in her belly could not be denied. Picking up livestock was simple enough, often they were simply standing asleep out in the fields, free for the taking. Still feeling uneasy by the direction her life had taken, Kelnixxdriia decided to dive and pick up a duo of pigs, one in each foreclaw, rather than struggle with another cow; the mass of the first was still weighting down her midsection after all.

The dreadful squealing stopped when she took the heads and four quarters of each large sow in her jaws and crunched down, filling her mouth and letting each large bite expand her thickened neck as it passed down. The dragoness did have separate tubes for breathing than for eating, so there was no risk of choking, but even so, the bites she took were so large, she could feel the tight mass of pig pressing against these tubes and the other structures of her neck as she slowly closed her jaws around each huge hunk as she forced it down.

The two heavy pigs collided with the cow already inside her, stretching her stomach until it pained her once again. But like before, Kelnixxdriia found that she couldn't stop and more, during the act, she did not want to stop. When her belly had filled, she could have cast away the last ribboned remains of the pigs, but looking at them, even while being buffeted by the wind and rain, she could no more have dropped them than she could have dropped her own hands. The compulsion was too strong, though her stomach pained her, she did not feel full. Savagely, she choked down the last of the pigs, trying not to think of it too much.

The pain of her midsection grew and she could feel her belly distended and round both between her thighs and by the rain striking the rounded surface as she floated above the earth. It took Kelnixxdriia a while to realize that she did not know where she was any longer. Below her was black and the sky was black also. Her internal flying sense told her which was the ground, so there was no vertigo, but it seemed that the storm had pushed her far from where she had been while she'd been fixated on glutting herself. Almost certainly she was over water now. At least there were no lights below.

The wind grinding in from the east seemed like a daunting and insurmountable enemy to face if she wanted to return to land. With her belly filled past capacity, Kelnixxdriia just wanted to settle down and wait to digest for a while. However, it now seemed impossible to do that on the isle she had once called home. Well... it was no longer home anyways, not with humans having conquered seemingly every inch of it. Kelnixxdriia instead turned her nose west, away from the wind and let the storm carrying her where it would. In the past, she daren't go in this direction for the continent was home to several powerful warring clans of dragons. But Kelnixxdriia had the sense that the times had changed. If nothing else, perhaps she could find isolation and time to collect her thoughts as well as see what changes her body had in store for her.

The day that Kelnixxdriia decided to leave the cave was also the day that the dragon decided to leave a more permanent mark of her existence behind. For the first time since awakening, the dragoness reached out with a hand that looked almost monstrous in its sheer size despite its perfect proportions to her body and inscribed the inside wall of her former dwelling. The inscription was somewhat taxing not because of how long it was, but because Kelnixxdriia had to stoop in order to fit inside what once was spacious accommodations and the largest natural cave she could find in a vast area. Her steel sharp claw rent the limestone with ease, producing the calligraphy of angled lines and dots she'd been trained in since memory began.

Here lived Kelnixxdriia, daughter of Fausabereth, a scholar and mother of two dozen plus three living hatchlings

I go now into either death or greatness

The Dreaming Death take us all

Kelnixxdriia thought this sufficient and grunted as she backed out of the now small opening. Inside she gave a last glance at the tally marks she had kept the last four years, the last of which lay near the ceiling. She sighed and the sound was deep and resonant in the huge space her chest now enclosed. It was still startling the scope her body had taken, and little effects she had on her environment, like how deeply her paws sank into the earth under her weight, were a constant source of surprise.

She looked over the landscape that expanded below the landing she would now be departing forever. Evergreen trees that expanded seemingly forever in a valley whose central feature was an always blue and clear lake. Mountains sheltered the valley, towering over everything and providing a much needed perspective in Kelnixxdriia's always changing life. Despite how large she got, the mountains at least would always be larger. The dragoness would miss their security, even though her main supply of food had not been this sheltered valley over the past four years.

The place Kelnixxdriia had called home was a valley in what the humans would have called south Prussia. And despite its apparent abundance, the dragoness with her height exceeding 42 feet at the shoulders and her weight increased to over 85 tons, she would have quickly depleted the supply of deer and wildlife in her hideaway. Instead she flew out in a different direction every day and sated her ever increasing appetite on whatever human habitations she came across. Naturally, the population didn't care for this abuse of their herds, but Kelnixxdriia had avoided preying on humans when possible because memories of the human rebellions and its apparent outcome were constantly fresh in her memory. As of yet, they had failed to track her back to her home. If a damp hole that she could barely fit inside could be called such.

But the lack of space was not the only reason Kelnixxdriia was leaving. She'd seen startling little sign of any sort of dragon habitation since coming to the continent. Granted, there had never been especially many dragons before, but such an absence in any of the lands she'd traversed was startling and everywhere she went she found only humans. A sinking feeling was beginning to build inside her that nothing, not even heaps of cows could fill. "Am I the last of my kind?" the dragoness worried, like a black and infected tooth.

But now, Kelnixxdriia had a quest, a purpose besides becoming a giant, which she had already accomplished to some extent. She would live on the move and see about finding others like herself who were alive in this world ruled by humans. When Kelnixxdriia leapt into the air, her hindclaws cracked and sank into the stone. Her belly also wobbled and shook more than a little for the dragoness's diet had resulted in more than just muscle and bone accumulating to her frame.

Normally Kelnixxdriia had traveled at night, as to avoid detection, but not since she was abandoning her home, she felt more comfortable traveling under the light of day with the sun warming her wings against the chill of the highlands. It was also easier to spot prey from farther away.

As Kelnixxdriia had grown, so seemingly had her hunger and her complacency with regards to indulging in it. She ate everyday, unbelievably. She would never before considered eating so heavily and so often, but the hunger was there to drive her and she'd long since given up fighting it to maintain some ancient decorum. It might have been one thing if the lands around her would have been unable to support her, but the humans of this time seemed to be all but drowning in plenty. In every direction she'd flown so far, she'd come across human habitation eventually, and always they kept their farms and their livestock near at hand. Hardly ever in the past four years had the dragoness gone hungry and now she regularly ate more than her old body's weight in fresh meat daily. She did not view it as waste nor even reproach her great size, rather, her size entitled her to the food she needed to survive and thrive. She was an impressive creature now, without being boastful. She towered above most human buildings and was larger than any dragons she had met personally back in her day. She was beautiful and incredible and her power gave her the right to take what she wanted when it was there.

As the great dragoness flew with the rising sun on her back, she could feel the air current giving way before her bulk as heavy beats of her massive wings kept her aloft. These currents brushed against her with feather softness, but with sturdy force, especially where her forward profile bulged significantly about her midsection. Despite having grown at ridiculous pace, the dragon's diet had been such that she'd actually accumulated a great deal of fat along with the increase in stature. A great round belly straddled her midsection, dark green skin folding into creases where her haunches met its mighty mass. More indentations along her body marred its former sleekness, like the propensity of the underside of her neck to sag and wobble and the thickening of her limbs which were now creasing at the joints. The base of her tail had enlarged into a great fatty pad and her tail itself had seemed to have doubled in mass by the feel of it.

The extra weight, Kelnixxdriia knew, contributed greatly to the strain on her wings to carry herself aloft these days. But more, the dragoness found that she had to flap constantly now to remain in the air. Gone were the days when she could soar unheeded on thermals for hours with hardly a beat of her wings. If she stopped flapping now, she began to fall immediately. The combination of these two effects greatly reduced the dragoness's flying stamina, which was another part of why she was leaving and a part that she did not really want to admit to herself. She could not maintain the lifestyle of before, flying long distances every night in search of food, not when flying tired her so now.

Still Kelnixxdriia passed by the first habitation that crossed her sight, though it was a good deal to the west of the direction she was currently flying. She remembered that place for she had struck its fields of nearly all the live stock just over two weeks ago. It was out of a knowledge that the food stuffs there would likely not have been replenished yet and not out of any pity for the humans there that the dragoness passed them by in favor of continuing her journey.

As the weight began to be an unbearable burden on her shoulders, the dragoness finally came within sight of a human settlement. She had been following a road far below her, so this was no surprise, but the size of this settlement was. Normally she would avoid human towns of this size, but now, with the incredible mass of her body to protect her, she felt more confident in approaching. And surely there would be more food here also.

As expected, farms dotted the outer expanses of the city, the lowing of cows who were too stupid to even turn their heads up made the dragoness's mouth water. It was just in time too for her wings felt like they would simply give out at any time. Normally, when landing nowadays, Kelnixxdriia would flap a lot in an attempt to touch ground as gently as possible. Her weight usually caused the ground to collapse under it to some extent, even when standing perfectly still. Right now, however, she could only muster the strength for a single flap to decelerate. Her hind paws sank to the ankle in the soft loam of the cow field. Falling upon her forelegs, these too sank up to her wrists, the turf crunched as her feet passed through and into the softer soil beneath it.

Kelnixxdriia panted, her lungs sounding like a great bellows as she pulled herself out of the ground one paw at a time and blissfully folded her wings to her back to rest. The cows were running mad around her and not for the first time, the dragoness wished she could simply flame the area and eat seared corpses without having to chase them down. The fence was holding them back for the moment, however, and soon Kelnixxdriia had freed herself, although with each step she took, she could feel the network of roots which held the ground together give a little. She quickly took stock of where the herd had divided itself as it pressed against the boundaries of fence and building and then made her attack.

A rake of claws felled half a dozen of the crowded animals, the huge talons at the end of each finger all but ripping some of the creatures in twain. Simultaneously, the dragon stretched out her long tail and brought it down like a hammer among the remaining beasts at the other end of the rectangular field. In moments, the entire herd was dead and bloodied. In response to the sight of piled meat, Kelnixxdriia began to squeeze her fire-bladder softly.

As she'd grown, so too had her ability to call forth the heat that still lingered where it had become lodged in her nether regions. The problem was that if she was careless and squeezed too much fire bile out at once, the heat grew into a burning pinprick that was uncomfortable in the extreme. However, she found that if she slowly released her bile at a steady pace, she could control the heat and the hunger and the pleasure the came from indulging it as her reproductive system basked in the strong, stimulating heat. Worry about what she was becoming had grown faint over the years and through use. The decadent pleasure of eating vast quantities of animals and fields of starchy vegetables and grains was too much to be ignored. And why should she deny herself this pleasure, anyways? It had always been the dragon's way that might makes right and Kelnixxdriia was might itself these days.

So it was without guilt or sense of shame that the dragoness began to introduce each bovine to the new environment of her stomach. The enormous sac that resided in her for this purpose seemed almost to send an electric tingle up the dragon's spine as she bit each cow in half and swallowed, hooves horns and all. The enormous organ had grown beyond the scope of her body, the dragon knew, through frequent stretching as she ate to capacity and beyond. Her capacity had grown so much that even an entire herd of cows was not enough to sate her now. The mass of the animals was certainly enough to distend her middle appreciably, but Kelnixxdriia lusted for more, to achieve that tight, hurtful feeling that coalesced with the heat in her nethers so nicely.

Following her nose, the huge dragon sniffed around the buildings of the farm. By now there were shouts of anger and fear arising from the humans who lived here, but they were far too mortified by the sight of a creature which dwarfed most of the buildings here to do so much as approach. The scent of living pork rose from under a paddock affixed to the side of a building. It gave way like something made of matchsticks before a sweep of her paw. Kelnixxdriia reached into the pen with her long neck and plucked each squealing animal out with her foreteeth, her tongue then wrapping around each pig as she swallowed it still wriggling and struggling down the length of her neck. Twelve heavy porkers disappeared down her gullet, her middle expanding just a bit more to accommodate the extra mass.

Out of more curiosity than anything else, the dragoness reached out with a paw and pressed against the large building to which the pig pen had been affixed. The timbers groaned and resisted the dragon's weight, but when she added another paw, this proved to be too much for the old, but sturdy wood. The thing fell over and wouldn't you know there were more living beasts inside! Three horses neighed and struggled in the wreckage of the barn. Instantly Kelnixxdriia was among them, her belly wobbling and the fleshy underside of neck rippling like a curtain. The horses were more slender than cows and as long as she positioned them head first, the dragoness could swallow them whole with a hard swallow.

By the time the horses were disposed of, Kelnixxdriia's belly was feeling rather full, but not full enough for her pleasure. She waddled about the farm, leaving massive foot prints and casually breaking off parts of buildings with her tail which she now had to wag for balance. At the far side of the farm, she saw a classic structure and she bounded after it, her fingers disappearing in the ground as she heaved herself into a trot that set the contents of her stomach churning.

The grain silo stood as tall as she was and, she knew ought to be filled with enough starchy goodness to pack the corners of her mostly full tummy. She bit into the side of the building, teeth sheering the wood and steel of the construction and flung the debris aside. A golden stream of grain poured out, which Kelnixxdriia caught on her tongue and swallowed as fast as she could. The hunger she was squeezing out artificially would press her to larger stunts of gluttony than she'd be able to manage on her own, she knew as the grain flowed into her, filling her up like a balloon.

Knowing she'd not require the entire silo just now, she'd bit moderately high up the building. however, even with that, it was a struggle to devour what came out until the flow stopped at the reduced height of the silo walls. Kelnixxdriia lay beside the container, belly bulging roundly and licked lazily at the particles still drifting out of the massive hole. She needed sleep now she knew, as she suckled at the rent she had made, but every lick seemed productive and she couldn't bring herself to stop pulling in the flakes of grain while they still trickled out, even though her stomach was a huge bulging mass inside of her that pulsed along with the beat of her heart so taut was it around nearly all the food contents of this farm. Sleep would come and time to digest and grow, but every morsel that escaped her maw seemed a tragic waste, just a little more wouldn't hurt. Then Kelnixxdriia released a titanic belch that threw the grain filled interior of the silo into a hurricane of motes. The release of pressure was a sweet relief, but now the dragoness had room for a little more grain...

Outside this large human town, the farms were so close together that Kelnixxdriia found it simpler to walk to each one in turn. Even though her belly was not quite empty from the previous day's gorging, she would walk the short distance to the next farm anyways, the better to top off her tank as it were. The freedom from having to fly vast distances to find food was a relief, but the drop in exertion seemed to have a negative impact on the ratio of fat to stature she was gaining. Her belly was definitely growing larger faster than she was getting taller.

Resistance came in the form of groups of humans equipped with their new popping projectile weapons and mounted soldiers. The lead stones they threw now were able to lodge in the skin o the great dragon, but little else. they were as mosquito bites and both parties seemed to realize this pretty quickly. Despite her great size and strength, however, Kelnixxdriia proved to be nearly as ineffective against the humans as they were against her. When she came forward to meet them in battle, they scattered and retreated faster than she could follow. She did have some fun in breaking apart their big guns, however.

Getting food starting to become a game of cat and mouse as the humans tried to move their herds out of her reach and harry her with sudden assaults when she wasn't looking before scattering. However, the fact that they could not meet her face to face proved their downfall for herds of animals were not so simple to move as one might think. Kelnixxdriia's urine, rained down from above also added to the difficulty as the scent of her drove both food beasts and the mounts the humans used mad. So it was not so difficult filling her gullet every day, though perhaps not always to her satisfaction. She still avoided eating humans. The resistant they brought forth was annoying for sure, but she felt still that their ire might increase if they began to suffer casualties to themselves rather than just their livestock.

By the time that Kelnixxdriia had circled around the great human city at least three times, resources were appearing to get scarce and not just because the humans were doing their best to keep their food away from her. The dragoness's belly had developed into a real paunch now with the fruits of the city. It now sagged at the bottom and was never completely round anymore. The mass of neck meat on her throat had also increased to the point where it felt as if there was as much or more fat there as there was muscle and sinew. She'd also grown at least another six feet in height, though it was hard to tell without tally marks.

She'd had gone the last 18 hours without having found much more than a chicken coop to eat, which she despised because of how much wood she had to ingest in order to be sure of getting all of the minuscule birds inside their cage. She decided that this place was likely tapped out of resources and that it was time to move on. Kelnixxdriia got up with a groan and the feel of her belly sliding over the ground as she rose. She spread wings and tensed her rear legs, preparing to leap.

And leap she did, despite her bulk she cleared the ground by at least her body's length. However, when she reached with her wings to grab the air, the familiar feel of support escaped her. Her wings slipped on the air as the weight of her body pulled her earth bound, first a little and then faster. Furiously, Kelnixxdriia pumped her wings, sending her paunch and neck fat jiggling like mad as well as the fat pad at the base of her tail scrunching against the flailing of her thick, heavy tail. But each pump of her wings only steadied her for a moment before continuing to fall, she could not gain any altitude. She landed on the ground before she was even spent, again sinking to her ankles and having to extract herself from the soil.

Again and again she tried until she was all hot and panting and could not bring herself to leap again. She was too heavy, too heavy by far to fly. The information struck the dragoness like a punch in the gut. She'd gotten too fat to fly and she hadn't even noticed.

Kelnixxdriia laid down, her weight breaking the surface of the earth, and filled up with self pity. At that moment, she wanted nothing more than a half dozen steer, simply to distract her from the pain and embarrassment she was feeling, no matter that they might exasperate the problem.

But bizarrely, her wish seemed to be granted as along the road to the ruined farm came a small contingent of men, the military type by the looks of them. And they were leading a string of animals between them. They marched boldly up to the prone dragoness and detached the string of strangely docile animals from their mounts just a tail's length away from her. They then departed without ceremony, leaving the animals lowing and within easy reach.

Given the state that Kelnixxdriia was in, she did not think too much about the humans' motivations before falling upon the steer and devouring them greedily. She'd heard of this thing before. Offerings to a 'rampaging' dragon. The humans hoped that by stating a dragon, they might keep it from plundering their lands. Kelnixxdriia figured this must be what was happening now. It was very fortunate that they began doing this now, before it became apparent that she could no longer fly. Well, it was their folly.

The steer seemed remarkably uninterested in the slaughter of their peers as Kelnixxdriia ate them one by one, but otherwise they were delicious and just as she'd hoped, the feeding distracted from the loss of the sky, at least for a time. After eating, Kelnixxdriia gave a great yawn and fell to lie on her squishy, extensive belly. She was not full by far, but a great weariness was settling upon her. Just as well, she needed a break from her revelation and she hoped that time to sleep would aid her in coming to terms with her new disability.

Kelnixxdriia could tell upon awakening that she'd slept for a long time. She yawned massively and sleep clung to her eyes like glue. Her mind felt muddled, like part of it refused to awake. Lifting her head, however, she found yet more steer, this time tied to a stake just before her. She looked blearily around, there were no humans in sight, though obviously this was another offering.

"Very well." thought Kelnixxdriia, "I shall take this offering and then I shall be on my way." As she consumed the placid bovines, she hoped that the next human city would not be too far away by foot.

The half dozen steer sat lightly in her belly as the dragoness got up and began to wander down the largest road leading out of the city, figuring that the widest one would lead to the largest, closest town to begin the feeding process anew. However, only two hours into her trek, she began to slow and by the third, she was so drenched with sleep that she could only lie down where she was and close her eyes before immediately drifting off.

Awakening, a familiar scene met her eyes, more bovines tied to stakes awaiting her. If there was a part of Kelnixxdriia that was suspicious, it was the part of her that was still sleeping. She gobbled down the offerings without thought and got lazily to her feet. Strangely she felt as if she were heavier as she began to walk down the road again. Not that it was strange for her to feel heavier, given her growth, but the new weight felt as if it were in excess to the usual amount of growth she endured each time she slept. Another two hours down the road again, however, she could not help but drift off again.

This time when Kelnixxdriia awoke, she was aware that she was losing days. She could feel in her bones and muscles a weariness that would not dissipate, rather like the feeling one got when falling into hibernation. And again, there were six more bovines. Despite what seemed to be happening to her, the dragoness could not stop herself from gorging once again, not with the prospect of traveling an unknown distance without food and her belly hanging empty inside of her.

But despite the apparent hunger, the dragoness felt as she rose considerably heavier and this new weight appeared to be more fat than muscle as her belly dropped low hanging between her thighs like a soft pendulum. Her tail had also got exceedingly heavy and thick as well. It was easier now to let it drag on the ground than keep it elevated. Kelnixxdriia trundled along the road in the direction she was traveling as best she could, but her limbs were far thicker than she was used to. Her forelegs developed into round plates of shoulder meat that wobbled on both sides as she walked, each was as thick as her ribcage was to either side of her. Her belly though was the biggest nuisance as it collided with her knees, throwing off her stride constant and the big heavy mass of it turned her knees apart, forcing them to go around its mass and limiting how large her steps were.

But none of this mattered for long as a now familiar sleepiness came upon her barely two hours into her journey. Kelnixxdriia tried to resist the pull of sleep, but it was a far greater burden than her weight and pulled her down as surely as if there were chained tied about her. Dreams came again, vivid and fanciful, of flight, of largeness, of plentiful hatchlings and multiple lovers.

When they finally broke, it was like coming out of an ice water bath. Kelnixxdriia's head pounded, and she clutched her scalp with a claw, but she could also feel the thickness of the appendage and the way the blubber at her shoulder resisted the movement. She had no idea how much time had past. The waking world was beginning to feel like a different sort of dream. The cows there were again and she devoured them without thought because she was hungry and the heat in her nethers demanded it. Getting up was a struggle in itself. Her bloated body resisted the strength of her feet as if the earth had become magnetized and she were a ball bearing. Of course, she really was quite round now. Bovine flanks mounted themselves on each side of her body and that belly of once she had been proud was now monstrous in size, sweeping down to match level with her raised ankles. Her tail was so thick now that the leather skin of it creased and buckled whenever she curled it even slightly. Her upper forearms had increased to ham like proportions and multiple creases formed at the elbows. She could not so much as tilt her head without sending a cascade of rippled down the thick cloying meat of her throat either.

"Is this real?" thought Kelnixxdriia wearily as she began to wobble and shake her way down the road. But barely an hour into it, the dragoness felt as if someone had taken hold of her mind and dragged it into darkness once again. She fell and then slept where she lay.

The dreams seemed to go on forever. She remembered her old friends and clan mates and it was as if they were alive and about her again. They were congratulating her on becoming the matriarch of the clan and they complimented her on her great size and the health of her hatchlings who were great dragons in their own rights. Kelnixxdriia accepted the praise dutifully and with only a little modesty. She deserved their adoration of course.

Awakening now was like climbing the side of a mountain. Blearily she cracked open her eyes, her head felt like it was full of cotton and already sleep was tugging at her with increasing insistence. There were people about her, she saw. Humans moving to and for about her body, touching her even and there was the scent of livestock as well. She felt something yank open her mouth and her muscles were too lazy to resist. Then there was actually a human crawling around inside her muzzle. Something pressed against the back of her throat and she swallowed involuntarily. It was meat certainly, but by the texture, it was meat wrapped around something else, tied together with string. "How long..." but Kelnixxdriia could not finish the thought.

From deep below, she felt a belch arising and it heaved out of her in a noisy eruption. There was a lot of food in her belly, not so much as she liked before this insanity started, but there was plenty in there for sure. The dragoness's awareness increased enough to allow her to start to rise. The humans backed away suddenly with shouts of alarm, but they needn't have bothered. Kelnixxdriia's movements were arrested suddenly by the ludicrous sensation of weight. Mostly it was in her belly, but her forequarters were hugely bloated as well and hindered her motion. That belly of her spread out over the ground where she lay like a landmass. Twitching a leg, she found it mostly buried under its girth. The other leg was turned out as far as it would go to accommodate the mass of her middle. Getting to her elbow was as much as she could do, at least not without some intense effort. And then what? Raising her neck, she saw the belly of her body towering over her shoulders and hips, in fact she was eye to eye with the crest of it and could not raise her head any higher. The great bulk of it stretched so far down, and down, she could not catch a glimpse of her hind paws. If she were standing, that mass would surely drag upon the ground.

The thought sent Kelnixxdriia collapsing down to the ground. Something wooden was crushed under her neck but she didn't care. There was no use in resisting any longer and sleep was calling yet more insistently. Before Kelnixxdriia feel asleep for the last time, she thought, "Maybe in a few hundred more years..."

Epilogue

Selina observed the unbelievable mass of dragon as the construction continued around the body of the titanic beast. "Was all that really necessary?" she asked in german the general of the Prussian forces.

"Why doctor, you are the one who designed the hibernation inducing drug from the beast's own tissue samples. If anything, I'd say that this was a remarkable success for your cause. We avoided killing her after all, just as you've been demanding for so long." said the general as he lit a sipped from a copper cup of Turkish coffee.

Selina gestured to the dragon's belly, the climax of which now jutted fifty feet into the air where she lay on her side. "I mean fattening the poor creature like that. It's inhumane."

The general sipped the coffee nonchalantly, "My dear, we were simply making sure that the thing received enough of the sedative. You know she awoke several times and required multiple dosings."

"Don't call me dear, you barbarian." said Selina, crossing her arms. "You wanted to immobilize her, so that she'd never be able to pose a threat again." She harumphed not for the first time. "Well, you've done it. I'm surprised the poor thing can even breathe."

"As long as she's alive, we'll take good care of her." said the general, "You see we are already constructing shelter for the beast. My dear lady, I think you are being unreasonable with your demands, I assure you that the Prussian government has already taken responsibility for the creature and will keep it adequately fed from this point forward for however long the beast lives, at taxpayer expense no less."

"Adequately fed, of course." said the scientist with venom, "And of course it will be such a burden when this one of a kind animal becomes an attraction for tourists and the extra revenue along with it."

"Madam, surely you cannot hold Prussia responsible for the actions of others, and would you deny this marvelous creature access from others, including people such as yourself from your own foreign government?"

Selina bit her tongue. The general had her there. And certainly there was no question about transporting the dragon back to England now...

Suddenly there came a commotion from several of the workers who had been lifting stone blocks around the dragon's tail. "Excuse me, Heir General." said Selina as she rushed to the scene.

Back in Oxford, Selina sipped tea contently while reclining in a soft chair lined with pillow. There was a roaring fire going that caused sweat to bead her brow, but that was of little concern. Instead, she concentrated on her marvelous recordings of dragon song, pondering the meaning of the many hours she had collected during the dragon's amazing incarceration here at the university.

"What does it mean?" she asked, "Will any of you be able to tell me?" With a bare toe the scientist affectionately nudged one of the hard round pale shaped set in straw that she had been able to smuggle out of Prussia. No less than thirty eggs had emerged from the sleeping dragon that day. Perhaps it had been triggered by the final lapse into hibernation or maybe her body had reached some critical point of production, or perhaps it was simply time, but the last productive action of the dragoness had been to deposit these precious eggs, the future that Selina had hoped to achieve from the start.

There was no knowing what went wrong with the procedure she'd done now several years ago, or how much of what had followed was her fault, but Selina was content now in how things had proceeded, despite the human suffering. For nothing could compare to the continuation of a species thought dead and hopefully a brighter future of cooperation for both dragon and man. "People think you are beasts, but I know better." said Selina as she listened to the dragon song playing in the background. "I'm just sorry that these songs are all I have to give."

Selina reclined into the feathery softness behind her as she continued to admire the great clutch of eggs. And she thought about their mother, now dreaming endlessly many miles away from here. She was encased in multiple formidable prisons now of mind and her own body, and while that was a shame, she was still alive and apparently in good health despite the bulk. "Perhaps there's hope yet, for you young ones to learn about your culture. All in good time."