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Four amber bottles clinked against each other, launching icy beads of condensation into the air. Four friends laughed and leaned back into comfy seats, basking in their fortune. One full year had passed since the dragon, orca, horse, and fox struck out on their own and founded a company with what little money they had in savings. A fantasy RPG was their first product, and it was met with brisk sales throughout the spring and summer after strong word-of-mouth and successful viral marketing. July was now quickly winding to a close, taking along with it prime beach days. The quartet decided to crash at the orca's beach house for an extended celebration before returning to the mountains of work involved in running a business.

"I could see Senna in the full getup our hero wears," Tegon smirked and traced out strips of leather across the horse's chest. "Neon here, studs there." The equine, the four's artist, wasn't even looking up, instead inking some conceptual sketches for their first DLC. He was quiet, reserved, and offered up few words, the complete antithesis to boisterous and proud Tegon. His aesthetic was key to the success of the game and most of the critical reviews centered on his innovative meshing of steampunk and cyberpunk. Senna's favorite headline: "Steam, Meet Steamy," showcasing both his revealing outfits and dystopian, polluted cityscapes.

Enoka flashed his teeth against the lip of a beer bottle. "Hear that man? Sounds like Tegon wants to take the reins and go for a ride." The cetacean was a consummate wingman as always, the friendly sort of orca most popular among the four, even if he was always looking for a way to get out of work. This small vacation was naturally his brainchild. 'Shorts-and-sandals' Enoka handled customer support and quality assurance, most recently guaranteeing their customers the snippets buried in their source code most certainly didn't prove the DLC was already in the game.

A handsome fox nearly choked on his drink. "You're disgusting!" Quinn sputtered. He knew his way around code like no other, or, as Tegon so eloquently put it, "made C his bitch." His ability to program quickly and without many errors allowed them to push out new patches on a regular basis. Consequently his paws always appeared to be moving and gesticulating, aching for the nearest keyboard, if just to knock out a few more subroutines.

Senna only grunted amid their banter, changing out his pen for one with a smaller tip.

"Hey, the fish said it, not me." Tegon ran the business side, organizing their funding, doling out paychecks, and helping out here and there when needed. The dragon always felt a little inferior around the others, even though he was right there with them from the beginning. He nonetheless thought his contributions paled in comparison to theirs.

Enoka feigned anger. "Say fish! Say fish one more fucking time and you'll be on your hands and knees picking these cards up!" He made a motion to flip over the crowded table separating each of the four chairs. Then he took another swig.

"Hey! Are we--" the fox put his finger up, trying to remember his train of thought. "--y-yeah, are we gonna finish this game or not?" He pointed to the haphazardly organized game of_Cards Against Humanity_. "Might I remind you I'm winning by one point? Maybe two. But I'm winning. That's the--that's my point here."

"That's because not everyone can appreciate my sense of humor!" Tegon crossed his arms. "'A big black dick' should win every time by default. Who's reading, anyway?"

"You are!" Even Enoka joined in the chorus of shouts.

The dragon looked down at the card in his paws. "Yes! You are correct! Points for all. Let's see here." He narrowed his eyes, having trouble focusing. "Blank. That's how I want to...die."

"Crippling debt." He giggled. "Yeah, little too accurate for me!" All four smiled, the slightest tinge of nervousness in the air. They were living high for now, but they knew how close they came to nothing.

"Raptor attacks. Hell yeah! But that's too easy. You know how much I like Jurassic Park."

"Clever boy," Enoka slurred out an unrecognizable accent. From under a sketchbook Tegon heard a snort and a groan.

"An erection that lasts longer than four hours. Heh, gotta be the winner, seeing how it's the most likely."

"Yes!" The fox shook his fist in triumph, while the others tried to argue their case.

"You--change your mind right now. You know you wanted to say 'raptor attacks,'" the orca dug a rubbery finger into his chest.

"I should have played 'Unfathomable stupidity,'" Senna held up the card. "Anyway, I'm feeling a headache coming on. I think I'm going to turn in for the night." He bundled up his supplies and stood, carefully twisting his aching neck. The other three waved him off before Enoka stretched mightily.

"Yeah, I'm gonna pass out soon, so see ya guys. You know where the bathrooms and everything are, right?" The fox and dragon nodded their heads. Tegon's bobbed more out of exhaustion than agreement. His eyelids drooped and he felt that occasional stumbling feeling of slipping into sleep. The stumbling not only continued, but quickly became a full-fledged sensation of falling. The dragon heard the whooshing of his body whipping through the air and his eyes snapped open just as he hit the floor.

What's going on? He rubbed his eyes a few times before a THOOM shook him to his core.

A hoof. An ebony hoof, several stories tall, was tapping impatiently before him. Almost in slow-motion did it lift from the ground, threatening to suck the dragon in under a gale of air before thunderclapping down. Stretching impossibly into the distance was the sneering face of Senna. But that wasn't all - to his left were broad orca feet, to the right fluffier, but just as deadly fox paws.

"The serum worked. Looks like we finally have our chance to get rid of the bug," Enoka rumbled, flexing his creamy toes hungrily.

"Good. He was always holding us back." Quinn's sole began to eclipse Tegon's tiny body, the rough texture of his pads coming into focus much too quickly.

"No! Wait! You're not really going to do this to me!" The formerly arrogant reptile cowered under their might.

"Shut the fuck up and pop already." Tegon felt the leathery pad touch his cheek, tasted its scent as it permeated all around him, feebly resisted it grinding him into the floor, then...

Sunshine.

Tegon's horned head rolled forward and met his fully intact hands, warmed by the morning rays of light. He had fallen asleep in his chair. Despite the balmy air around him his hands trembled. Every scuff mark on those hooves, every crease on those paws looked so real.

What would they really do if something like that happened? He shook his head roughly. What am I thinking? That's stupid. His claws raked at his bare chest before the dragon arose from his seat and slowly made his way into one of the bathrooms. Slipping off his fleece pants from the night before, he took a lengthy hot shower. By the time he shut off the water everyone else was awake and stumbling about.

With such great weather that day they decided to venture out to the beach for the first time. Thankfully the orca's house was a short jaunt down the boardwalk to a relatively uncrowded coast. All they had to do was dodge a few tourist traps.

"Oh, I'm totally getting this shirt." Enoka held up a neon yellow tee that had 'SWAG' emblazoned upon it in rainbow letters. The rack of brightly-colored clothing had already ensnared him. Tegon, Senna, and Quinn just shook their heads in unison. That was, until the rest each found a tacky trinket that caught their eyes. The horse reluctantly followed them into the store.

"Maybe I can get a new pencil or something."

After several minutes of Tegon unsuccessfully searching for his name on a solar-powered blinking keychain, Senna, their voice of reason, actually managed to drag them off of the wooden planks and onto the sand. But not before grabbing a tasty-looking cake pop for himself first.

As soon as the four had picked out a sufficiently sun-soaked plot, the orca was slipping into the ocean, his yellow trunks disappearing under cover of frothy foam. Senna was more content to tan and distract himself with technology. "Huh, looks like I can get a few bars from here. Guess it wouldn't hurt to stream a little FurFlix." Tegon and Quinn alternated between throwing a disc around and joining Enoka in the water. The two were chatting near the backstroking orca when the fox interrupted Tegon.

"Hey, what's that behind your back?" Quinn pointed at a clear, billowy mass behind his reptilian friend while his lip began to curl with realization.

"Oh, gods, it's a jellyfish!" Tegon leaped back into the fox's unprepared arms, but Enoka waved him off.

"No, Tegon, that's just a trash bag. On the plus side we got to watch you embarrass yourself," he cackled at the deeply blushing dragon. Quinn pushed Tegon away with a solitary finger to the back before the two spent the rest of the morning discussing their plans for the game.

Senna finally flipped over on his back in the early afternoon, watching the latest episode of some popular cartoon. He called over to his friends. "I'm already sunburned and probably hit my data limit for the month, so when are we getting out of here?"

The orca moaned, now floating on his back on the surface of calm waves. "Just a few more hours, please." A languidly drooping hand shielded his eyes. "The sun is perfect. You need to get out of the office more if you don't want to burn so easily."

Tegon, meanwhile, was animated. "If we drop, like 3k on our advertising budget next month I think we'll get a nice--"

Quinn cut the scalie short again. "Yeah, sure, that sounds great. I think it's time we get lunch though."

His friend nodded and sloshed his way out of the water, keeping a handle on his trunks so they wouldn't get pulled off by the current.

"Funny, I didn't take you for the modest type. In fact, I'm shocked you haven't flashed anyone yet."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Now wait until you try this crab place I've heard about." He pointed at Quinn's upturned mouth. "It's so delicious it'll shut you up real quick."

The four partners, spearheaded by one very eager horse and followed by one very depressed orca, packed up their folding chairs and umbrellas, stowing them back in the beach house before settling down for a hearty meal and several drinks.

At the packed restaurant a two-toned drake waved a crab leg around, watching a baseball game on one of the outdoor televisions. "What did I say? Best in town, worth the hour wait." Enoka unusually didn't back him up, instead preoccupied with his sweet tea and whatever was on his phone.

"Eeesh, I have some bad news about tomorrow's golf game," the orca set down his glass and spun his phone around, and three pairs of eyes saw a nasty band of yellow and red crawling towards the coast. Looking out onto the water they saw the clouds indeed growing darker and more threatening.

"Dammit, that looks like a pretty bad thunderstorm," Quinn sighed and clasped his paws behind his neck. "I was gonna work out all this excess energy on the course too."

Senna, on the other hand, was decidedly less bothered. "Maybe I can finally color and shade that boss. I have a few sketches in my mind too. I think you guys'll like it. Tegon especially. I won't give it away, but it involves a dragon."

"If it ain't a kaiju, I ain't interested," Tegon implored while grinning.

The rest of their meal was relatively quiet, each already planning what to do during the unexpected day inside. On their way back to the beach house, store employees were bringing in the clothes racks in preparation for the storm.

"Not my swag!" Enoka hammed it up for his friends, dropping to one knee and gazing skyward. The teenage shark pushing it along with all the others inside rolled his eyes, while their equine companion suddenly took great interest in a seaside tattoo parlor.

"Looks like they're closing early. I wanted to get a new pair of flip flops since these are falling apart, but I guess I'll wait." The fox held up his foot and lifted his toes to prove his point.

Tegon's eyes lingered for a split second. "Maybe you could duck out tomorrow before it really starts to pour," and that seemed to satisfy his friend. After filing back into their temporary home Senna pulled a deck of cards out of his travel bag while Tegon took a quick shower.

"I know you guys aren't huge fans of all those nerdy cons I go to, but last one I picked up a new game. Gather round the card table and I'll tell you how it works."

They spent the remainder of the day trying and failing to figure out the complicated rules. Senna wore out the instruction booklet flipping back and forth to find out if their moves were legal.

"What do you mean I don't have enough action points to attack? Is it because you're playing a freeze card? Fuck," and with that the dragon threw his hand into the air. He arose, puffed, and bent over. "Honestly guys I'm feeling kinda iffy. Maybe that restaurant wasn't so amazing after all." Tegon hoped food poisoning wouldn't ruin the rest of his vacation. "I think tonight I'm actually going to try and make it to my bed. See y'all in the morning."

Enoka saluted offhandedly, buried in his cards, as were the rest. Tegon lurched into his room and crawled into an unused bed, feeling worse by the minute. He pulled over his phone to check social media as a distraction, but even that became too much effort. His stomach felt like fire, as if he had chugged lighter fluid and lit a match. The dragon drifted off into a restless sleep, prepared to run to the bathroom at a moment's notice.

Tegon awoke to the rumbling of thunder. His maw gaped open in a yawn, and his entire body was in a much better mood. Quinn's gonna be out of luck. Sounds like the storm got here early. His paw blindly reached over to check the time on his phone, but instead his fist only hit the sheets. Then came another peal of thunder. Tegon sat up and looked around.

He immediately sprang up as the world came into focus. His head desperately whipped back and forth. The bed, the whole room, stretched out around him for miles. Folds on the sheets became imposing dunes with peaks and valleys. His phone was blurry in the distance, stretching out for a city block. If he had to estimate off the cuff, the dragon was probably just smaller than a carpenter ant.

He pondered what he could possibly do next, and ruled out his phone as a lifeline since the touchscreen's sensitivity had to be too low to register his hands or feet. Besides, the power button on the side would require too much force to push. Then the door to his room swung open, knocking him to his rump with the vibrations as it hit the wall.

Backlit by the hall light was the largest being Tegon had ever laid eyes on, taller than most skyscrapers. It was the source of the thunder in the form of door-knocking, Quinn. The fox was looking far beyond Tegon's jumping and waving form, striding into the room with booming steps. The scalie heard everything from the slick smack of Quinn's paws catching his dangling flip-flops to the sand crunched under the footwear's incredible pressure. A buttoned-down pastel shirt draped over his body rustled across every brown and white hair in its way before falling into place. His tan shorts fluttered to a rest as well. The fox's head seemed to swim in the air, floating back and forth, before he blankly looked down right at Tegon.

"Yes! I'm right here! Quinn, please!" The dragon desperately waved his hands around.

The fox blinked, once, twice. Then came his painful voice echoing down, like a freight train passing, or the shockwave from an explosion.

"Must have gone out or something." Truly it was a whisper, but Tegon's ears were left ringing as if he were sitting in the front row of a rock concert. He pressed his hands tightly against his head. Something as commonplace as speech could injure at his diminished size.

Tail swishing back and forth, the fox turned to leave. Tegon had to make a quick split second decision. Climbing down the bed could take an hour or more, and then how could he get his friends' attention without being stepped on? These thoughts floating through his mind, he rashly sprinted towards the end of the bed, ignoring the direness of his predicament. He sailed through the air, missing the fox's tail but managing to grab a loose thread on the leg of his shorts.

His body was dragged roughly forward as the fox moved into another room, reptilian bones protesting such sudden acceleration against his flesh. Distant objects still were tough to make out, but it appeared as though his partner was making his way towards the TV. Below Tegon were the fox's deadly feet, slamming roughly and without regard for anything caught under their tread. Even worse was his natural shuffle, ensuring that any unfortunate bug would be bulldozed and smeared if it so much as crossed paths with the monster.

The fox turned and leaned forward, placing his hand-paw onto a chair's arm for support. Then Tegon felt the free-falling vertigo of downward motion as the fox sat down. Subtle movements from side to side as the giant descended were magnified into rapid oscillations between positive and negative g-forces. The blood rushed out of his head and Tegon lost himself in the wooziness. His grip began to slacken, and just before he blacked out he felt his hand finally lose its grasp on the loop of material.

When he awoke a minute later, the first thing he noticed was the stale air. His size worked for him in this case, sparing him a gruesome demise from the fall, but on the other hand it appeared to put him in a greater immediate danger. High above his head was a forest of brown fur marking the fox's heel. He was just on the edge of Quinn's well-worn sandal.

He also detected some muffled voices, and decided that Quinn must have been sitting there watching TV while he waited for everyone else to wake up. Or, perhaps he was waiting for Tegon to return from a non-existent trip. Either way the noises were much more tolerable than a fox's voice from inches away. From a position of relative safety the dragon now had to decide his next move.

The most intuitive choice was to scale down the side of the flip flop nearest to him, but Tegon discovered two major obstacles as he peeked over the side. First was his location on the left side of the right foot, meaning that reaching the floor would put him squarely between the soles of both shoes. The second made him gasp and snap back until he slowly poked his snout back again. A sand flea, almost twice his size, was rooting around on the short-pile carpet below. Thankfully it took no mind of the micro dragon, and instead wiggled around before leaping forward.

Unfortunately for the unthinking pest, it placed itself ever closer to the energetic fox. When the mammal readjusted himself for comfort, a motion that forced Tegon to cling on to avoid getting prematurely thrown overboard, a shadow fell over the bug. With one swift motion, the fox lowered his foot onto the flea along with his weight, and Tegon could hear the dry crunches and cracks from above. The colossal foot and leg showed no signs of recognizing what it had just done. Tegon resolved then and there to try a different route. To his right was the wall of flesh that was one of the fox's toepads. About halfway up it transitioned into fur as it crested up and out of sight. Under the toe was out of the question for obvious reasons, and the path in front of him was too steep to risk going that way.

So Tegon used the natural texture of the pad, carved organically over the fox's lifetime. The whorls and ravines provided him excellent handholds. He only hoped that he wouldn't register enough to be considered a trifling itch. The images of being impaled by a claw and gruesomely smeared over a tiny area distracted his movements. He pressed on, making his way to the ropy, tawny fur and climbing much faster to the summit.

From one toe to another. If he jumped from Quinn's first toe to the second, then he could work with the top of the strap, saving him from his giant friend's body for as long as possible. Then he could start climbing upwards and improvise from there. The dragon stood on the summit, about where the fox's black claw poked out from the field of fur and hooked proudly into the sky. He steadied his breath, with only the pulsing of the fox's body below him and the distant rumblings of the television audible. Before, when he wasn't thinking, the much more dangerous leap came naturally. Now that he was planning and second-guessing, it wasn't so easy. He just couldn't look down, not under any circumstance.

He looked down. There was a steep, sheer drop, followed by what would probably be a slide down the worn toe-prints to fall within the shadow of one of the fox's gargantuan boulders. One errant twitch, and it was goodbye Tegon. With that in mind, he breathed once, twice, and flew forward.

A second into the jump he realized his mistake. This wasn't going to be an epic Guardians of the Galaxy-esque leap. Maybe the perspective was messing with his head, but the calculations he made by eye were woefully inadequate. Less than halfway through he began to lose altitude, and the tufts of hair wisps from between the fox's toes slipped through his fingers. All his worst fears were coming true.

When Tegon landed on the sandal's rough fissured surface, it didn't hurt him much, but it certainly wasn't pleasant. He rolled to offset the force, and sure enough it sent him down into a depression eroded out of the fox's footwear over time by the monolith's toes. Naturally, just to pile onto his misery, it was damper and more richly scented where he came to rest. He saw the hovering digit begin to descend, and braced for the worst. But his death by squishing never came, only another rush of the heady air. Tegon never guessed he'd be grateful for getting a lungful of that, but his friend's wild energy saved him.

The fox was wiggling his toe in the air, never quite bringing it all the way down. When the tiny dragon was satisfied praying to every god he had ever heard of, he scrambled to stand and set out to at least get out of the foot's shadow. When he reached the edge of the toe-print he was winded. The oppressive heat radiating from the furry mammal's body kept him panting.

Suddenly he was faced with a new challenge. While the fox's constant motion saved his life, it certainly didn't make planning any easier. For Quinn's foot slowly peeled itself away from the sweaty surface, retracting over the barren landscape and carrying with it the tiniest of debris from the aging surface. After lifting sufficiently high into the air, the toes slammed down again, climbing forward, bringing the rest of the foot with it. But instead of cramming the toe-strap between two mountains, the sole compressed the strap flat as it rumbled over both it and the tiny. Tegon plunged into darkness. The fox was simply resting his foot on top of the flip flop instead of wearing it.

The dragon trembled, bear-hugging the base of the toe-strap as the rumbling settled down over time. An eerie quiet enveloped him for the first time since this whole ordeal started. The fox's paw rested, contented for the time being, overhead. There was the occasional sound of biological grinding as bones and joints realigned and fixed themselves. Of course he could feel the bass of dull, steady thuds, not from the television but rather Quinn's authoritative heartbeat. Now leaping off the front of the footwear and getting the hell out of there was the only thing on Tegon's mind. This situation was too tenuous, too mind-bendingly perplexing that his fight-or-flight instincts kicked in. He saw what those paws could do to something with an exoskeleton many times tougher than his scales. It wasn't even a fight. As if the endless sole was watching him, he kept an eye to the sky through the process of bringing himself to his feet and backing away. He followed the light behind him and gradually assumed a climbing posture as the sandal began to curve upward from years of abuse. He brushed out the slickness underpaw from his head, refusing to think too much about what he was putting his body all over.

When he reached the frayed lip ringing the edge of Quinn's flip flop, Tegon crossed his arms and rested his weight on them, staring at yet more blurry shapes before him. The dragon belted out a frustrated, hopeless cry. Almost an hour into his adventure and he only narrowly managed to avoid getting killed, making absolutely zero progress in getting noticed. And if he did get noticed, what then? There's no way their macro eyes could see anything but a wriggling speck. He recalled a line from a book he had read recently:

I'm pretty much fucked.

A distinctive clopping came from behind the mote. Its sharp report reminded Tegon of a series of gunshots, much different than the dull, vibrating thud of fox paws. He twisted his neck to make sure Quinn wasn't doing anything else with his feet. Luckily he had remained stationary, but instead Tegon was gifted the incredible sight of Senna's hoof striding into view and firmly planting itself onto the plain of carpet to his left. The fox's shuffling feet from on high had nothing on his current perspective. Tegon hung on the lip of the sandal still, enraptured as the muscular leg visibly contracted, lifting tons of hoof into the air and propelling it forward. The hooves circled around to face him, and then the painful speech began anew.

"You seen Tegon? I have some sketches to show him."

"Nah. Hasn't been here all morning. Probably went to the store."

"Alright. I'll catch him when he gets back."

The dragon only caught the distinctive vocalizations of his name, with the rest sounding alien and slurred. He made his second hurried decision of the day. Of the three partners, the one most likely to scrutinize his painfully bug-like form and recognize Tegon for what he truly was would be Senna. The hoof could be a tough vehicle to hitch a ride on, but sticking around on a titan's sandal for any longer than he had to did not appear to have much point. His arms strained to vault him over the edge, claws slowing his descent down the face of the sandal before engaging in a bit of impromptu parkour. His arms moved in a windmill pattern while he bent his legs to absorb the impact. When he hit the ground, he briefly had the air squeezed out of his lungs. Recovering as quickly as he could with greedy gasps of oxygen, he spotted the horse's hazy head far above was turning to look into the distance.

He's moving.

After a few heavy, labored breaths, Tegon took off in a sprint with a primal roar. His feet pounded against the carpet, claws retracted so they wouldn't hook on any stray fibers and kill his chances of survival. Deep inside, perhaps a small part of him was fearful to abandon the only thing he had mastered his way around as a micro, but the rest of his body was focused on that hoof. Just as it began to lift away from him, the dragon went for a flying tackle and latched on to a microscopic imperfection. His eyes burned, watery with the force of the wind as Senna went back to his room. Worse than any carnival ride were the forces pulling the rest of his body down as he shot forward. Below him, the landscape changed from one shade of carpet to the next as Senna entered his room. The equine locked his door with a snap after shutting the door behind him.

Tegon wasn't sure how to treat this development. Why would Senna possibly lock his door if he was just going to do some more drawing? Could the process really be that secretive? His thoughts were interrupted by buffeting winds and a louder thump than anything he had heard so far. He looked up.

Holy shit, he's huge!

The sound was the horse's loose basketball shorts falling to the ground all around him, and Tegon was left looking an entirely nude Senna. The micro never had the pleasure of encountering an endowment of this type before, so he took stock. Each sight from this new perspective astounded him more than the last. The equine had to be twice as long soft as Tegon at normal size was aroused. It suddenly occurred to the dragon where the phrase 'third leg' came from. He was embarrassed to admit that sheer size could turn him on, but no man could ignore something like that right in front of their eyes. All along the length were splotches of creamy pink, but on the whole it was obsidian black. Halfway to the head a fleshy ring segmented his view in two. He guessed it was some type of foreskin, something his species lacked. A rather unique flared tip swung freely, in its center a broad tunnel quickly disappearing into a black hole of nothingness.

I'm stuck with an artist who likes to rock out with his cock out. Great.

The surrounding pile of synthetic mesh was forgotten by the hoof as it proceeded towards Senna's bed. Tegon's claws had long since found their holds, and he was secure as the horse climbed into bed. The titan crawled in at an angle that spared Tegon's back from getting pounded and scuffed by the sheets. The dragon's world tilted horizontally as his friend stretched out comfortably. An earsplitting yawn accompanied a series of rippling and tightening muscles. Tegon reflected that hearing was more of a handicap at this scale than anything.

Senna lifted a coffee-stained, warped sketchbook off his nightstand along with an art pencil. Since Tegon wasn't around to see his latest creation, he decided to start on another boss for their game. It would be the one he teased Tegon about at the beach, a fantastical winged dragon. His mind controlled a series of brass pipes draped over his body to blow a smokescreen in the player's face. The horse decided to sketch out the enemy's portly cartoonish figure first. He flipped through pages and pages of inked characters until he found a pristine canvas and began to work. Tegon started a trek of his own, glad Senna's much shorter, velveteen fur and sideways posture would make it easy to get into position and call for attention.

Tegon jogged across the horse's thigh, his feet bouncing on top of layers of muscle and fat. The giant before him scribbled away next to an incandescent lamp, frowning and sighing through his work. A masculine aroma wafted from a chasm to the tiny's side. It was filled by nothing less than his favorite card in Cards Against Humanity. Now he knew why Senna never voted for him. It was more reality than a joke. The dragon laughed at the idea in his head now. A little levity was great to offset the realization that he would probably either suffer through a long painful life or a long painful death. He ascended the distracted horse's stomach, then chest, expending far too much energy to derive any pleasure from getting intimately acquainted with the rolling hills of his abs.

"Can't wait for Tegon to see this," the horse murmured.

That simple sentence turned Tegon's perspective on its head. It made all the heartache of that morning fall away. For once he didn't care how loud an utterance was. His opinion was valued after all. That nightmare from before, of them ganging up and crushing him, was nothing more than a falsehood. His friends never treated him unfairly and if he ever found a way to return to normal size Tegon vowed to act differently.

Senna, none the wiser to the impact of his words, brought his eraser down firmly and took away a line he had drawn. He would have preferred working on his digital tablet for how easy it made correcting mistakes, but he didn't think his friends would have let him bring half the office on vacation. On the other hand it gave him the slightest spark of omnipotence. The ability to create and destroy worlds with his fingers. After pulling the sheet back and viewing it at a distance, he decided to make his line curvier. So his pencil pushed through the eraser flakes and rounded off back to the rest of his linework.

Concurrently, Tegon figured being a tiny insect probably involved many dangerous leaps. Yet another gap separated him from the edge of the horse's sketchbook. He dug into charcoal flesh with his claws, anchoring one hand, and took in the vista behind him. A few shavings of rubber tumbled off an artificial cliff of paper, coming to rest after a few bounces along Senna's stomach. The pressure, Tegon was sure, wasn't sensed by his friend in the slightest. This time he didn't think further and pushed off from the horse's body. The paper's fibers were rough enough to support his weight without sliding off and back to where he started. The dragon's eyes danced as they followed the sweeping, swooping pencil work.

The instrument above moved erratically, sometimes staying on a steady line, sometimes touching up the image in an entirely different part of the picture. Tegon figured his best shot was getting noticed in the center and continued climbing. He passed the lowest pencil line on the page, which covered his palms in gray dust. Senna then decided to add a silver toe-ring to the creature's foot, and dropped the pencil with a thwap and a shower of dark specks just to Tegon's left. The graphite tip moved too quickly for the battered creature, who feebly hitched a ride on the wood and felt his stomach flip as the pencil tilted every which way.

It was an offhanded bad habit, really. But it sealed Tegon's fate. The horse brought the pencil tip to his lips while he thought about what to detail next. The dragon shifted nervously, wondering if it were time to bail out and take his chances with the fall. The decision was made for him as the horse's tongue slipped out for a split second and grabbed him right off the tip. Then it was back to planning out his character's design.

Tegon's world was completely thrown into chaos as the lips plopped shut and plunged him into darkness. A sticky tongue dragged him under Senna's front teeth, his body just shooting the gap between the front two. Adrenaline was the only barrier to a full-blown panic attack, seeing as the wrong move could send him plummeting down his friend's throat. The tongue continued to punish him for indecision and raked him across the textured roof of the equine's maw.

The horse grabbed the chocolate cake pop he snagged the day before as he was yanking the others out of the beach shop. Now was as good a time as any to enjoy it, seeing as how they were going to be cooped up all day without a chance at another restaurant. He finished a brass pipe on the scalie's shoulder, carefully unwrapped the crinkly cellophane, and popped the entire sphere minus most of the paper stick into his mouth. Senna chewed on it slowly while his head conceived more designs.

Unlike the dragon's fangs, designed for piercing and exsanguination, these broad, flat teeth could easily tear his minute body in two and mash the remains to a pulp. At least he didn't risk getting speared through the gut by a cone-shaped dragon fang and slowly bleeding out. The swampy muck shifted to and fro, flesh smacking and cake crumbling apart before strings of spit strung everything back together. Tegon practically swam his way through the saliva and chocolate batter every time Senna's teeth slammed down to chew. At the same time he always had to work forward and fight the repelling waves the horse's tongue kept stirring up. Keeping his bearings was essential. At any moment Senna could swallow the dessert and one miserable reptile whole. And that very action he soon attempted, of course. A tugging was unmistakable as the horse prepared to gulp down the tasty treat. Tegon desperately trudged forward, reaching his paw out...

Success! The floor dropped out from under him as the entire piece of candy was swallowed. Tegon was saved by Senna's chance selection. Unlike hard candy or gum, the cake pop had a paper stick, which acted like a life preserver. A life preserver that Senna promptly pulled out of his mouth once the last bits of treat slithered down his throat. He inadvertently flicked it with a thumb after doing so, which sent an unprepared Tegon flying through the air and colliding face-first with a familiarly musky patch of flesh. His snout skidded along until his body collapsed in a heap.

He glanced at the ground below and couldn't imagine his luck could get much worse. The musk wasn't a new scent since he was exposed to it only a short while ago. The one place he didn't want to end up. Smack dab in the middle of Senna's impressively lengthy penis.

It's official. The universe is trying to kill me.

I'm not going to let it win.

Tegon straddled the pole as best he could, figuring a ride on top outranked any time underneath. How he could get back up to the sketchbook now, and did he even want to risk a one-way ticket to digestion? His toeclaws dangled, brushing along exposed skin. What he hadn't considered was the differing sensitivity between different parts of a body. The erogenous zones on any anthro ranked pretty highly, much higher than a random strip of leg or chest. All it took was a slight tingle to set the relevant synapses aglow.

The dragon swallowed hard as the sketchbook covering his friend's face shifted. Senna was now looking directly at him. The horse's nostrils flared, considering what lay beneath his gaze. Tegon wouldn't have felt tenser if Anubis himself were weighing his heart, such was the supremacy of Senna's gaze. His drawing was forgotten as a palm reached down and cupped underneath Tegon.

The horse was plodding along on his picture when he felt a twitch along the length of his penis. He knew the feeling was going to arrive sooner or later, considering they had been on a trip for several days and he hadn't had any 'private time' to that point. He was surprised he felt the itch this early, but the combination of fresh sea air and heat might have done the trick. Sexual pressure wreaked terrible havoc on his creative side, so his lust would have to be quenched before sketching any further.

Senna smacked his softened length a few times onto an open palm. Tegon treated it as no different from sitting atop a rampaging bull. His sketchbook was pressed aside to the edge of the bed as the horse repositioned himself, back against his pillow and head thrown back to get a small mop of brown hair out of his eyes. His legs bent at the knee, spread wide knowing no one would be interrupting this surge of hormones.

The dragon was rather curious as to how one dealt with a slab like his friend's. He soon received a crash course in the matter, deft fingers zooming forward to gyrate around the tip. Senna flicked his curled thumb and forefinger over the fleshy ring, eliciting a strong twitch, then moved down to work the base. The bottom half must have been foreskin after all, since the sticky ring of flesh moved just up to Tegon's position before unrolling again. The dragon had the ability to hear blood rushing behind his ears if he closed his eyes tightly. A sound not too unlike that came from below. It must have been the engorging member slowly lifting at an unceasing touch. The speck smartly stayed near a swatch of black, knowing it was unlikely he'd be noticed now.

Tegon blushed upon looking up at Senna's face. For how embarrassing the faces Tegon assuredly made while masturbating were, the equine made him feel all the worse. He never particularly had romantic feelings for his friend, but even he felt flushed at the breathless expression, the half-closed eyes, the slack mouth. He readjusted his hips, clinging tighter. On the opposite side of the equine shaft a hand pumped and caressed.

A heavy snort from the horse's snout was followed by a quick spurt of fluid from the tip. The blob of goo fell almost straight back down, and what didn't remain smeared across the top came dribbling down Tegon's side. He dodged the crawling bead of pre, which magnified the flesh underneath as it passed him by and rested stickily at the base. A curling fingertip just missing Tegon snapped him back into the moment. It ceased pleasuring Senna's length only briefly to swoop down and scoop up the pre. Then it moved back to a waiting tongue, which slipped back between those all-too-familiar lips. The tiny wondered whether his friend was particularly horny or simply much kinkier than he would have thought. He dodged a few more syrupy tendrils as they came down, the horse's cock curling naturally at its full length and happy to let the pre flow freely. At least Tegon didn't have it any harder than the opposite side, judging from the sickly squelches Senna's fingers were making.

Then came the moans. Softly, probably knowing their mutual mammalian friends had excellent hearing. But Tegon got the full force of the high-pitched grunts, interspersed by forceful exhalations. The horse's fist wrapped tightly around the base of his shaft and remained there. Tegon looked around to see what was going on and caught the other hand bringing something fluffy white and crumpled into view. It was time. Senna tilted his cock down, quite the effort considering how much resistance it put up fully inflated. His tip aimed at the wad of tissue paper, and Tegon faced forward to watch the show. He almost lost his grip as the flesh below stretched further, unrolling the foreskin just a tad more. The heralding contraction cleared out all the pre that had yet to emerge in a single stream. The first true jet of cum rocketed into the horse's hand while some of the excess spray misted his surroundings. The following bursts soaked the Kleenex thoroughly, after which Senna quickly brought another to bat, tossing the first into the bedside wastebasket. The dragon couldn't believe his eyes as this one, too, filled with the jelly-like cream. He had no idea one anthro could release so much at once at normal size. With a bug's eye view, it was like seeing a lake created in an instant, followed by another. Above the horse's lips were curled in a sneer, the rest of his face contorted with pleasure and exertion. With one last sigh, he let his tower fall into the tissue with a muted shlick. Senna's fingers wrung out the last few drops before the second Kleenex, too, was tossed into the trash. He slid his body forward until his head rested against the pillow, then closed his eyes.

After all that, all that effort. He's just going to sleep, and there's nothing I can do about it. I wasn't here for a cheap thrill, Senna. You were supposed to save me.

Tegon's fist pounded the unyielding, flaccid cock. It elicited a wet squish from the sweat of sex. His luck with Senna was even worse than with Quinn. Since he was no longer in a hurry, the dragon took a moment to brush off as much of the remnants of the cake pop as he could. The crumbs tumbled down where he now looked to go. He leapt down onto a small bit of cotton before the horse's still leg, then quickly used fistfuls of short equine hair to scale up one side and slide down the other. Thanks to Senna's messy habits the bedding touched the floor. An arduous trek to the foot of the bed to scale down a wooden leg became a quick, pleasant surf down the fabric. Determined, he pushed pillows of woven material out of the way until he was back on carpet and strode towards the door. Another perk of being tiny was that a locked door didn't mean much. There was more than enough room for Tegon to slip under a crack and find himself in the amphitheater of the main hallway.

Down the hall and on the opposite side of the hall was his room. Behind him and opposite was Enoka's room and the living room, where Quinn was presumably still watching TV. He studied the painted wooden planks of the bungalow's walls. Tegon ran through a few crazy scenarios, including the idea that crawling up to eye level and waiting for someone to walk by would result in anything other than a well-deserved swat. That's when there was an almighty pair of blasts behind him.

The dragon spun around on his heel, reflexively clasping a paw to his mouth. At the end of the hallway was the chiseled body of his best friend, standing proud and tall regardless of height. A white cord stretched from the orca's loose shorts to his earbuds, no doubt playing an up-tempo song. His bare feet tapped along to the beat, the smacks juicier than anything the fox or horse could produce with theirs. Around his neck was a hand towel, and his gaze was fixed on the other end of the hallway, towards the door outside. Impending thunder and lightning was no deterrent to the sea mammal's wish to be near the ocean. His body longed to bury his playful toes in the sand or cut through the water with a breaststroke. Some modest workout equipment out back in the fresh air would have to substitute, as even Enoka wasn't foolish enough to swim with the threat of riptides. Tegon correctly guessed he wanted to get his daily workout in early.

Enoka's foot resembled most mammals'. Each had a broad sole with wrinkled flesh that stretched taught whenever his toes curled upward. Most of the foot was black, but a splash of white began near the heel and crawled up the orca's thigh. The toes had no sort of nail seeing as such an implement wasn't necessary in the ocean - instead there was slight vestigial webbing between each of his four digits, making him a much better swimmer than the average anthro.

This extended to his hands as well, which swung while the foundation of the house protested under his steps. Tegon gauged his own position, but didn't run off in either direction. Instead he positioned himself directly in the path of the rapidly approaching feet. The dragon knew that, unlike the horse's hooves and the fox's paws, the orca's naturally slippery skin couldn't be attacked normally. He had to jump on top of Enoka's foot instead of the side. One false move could be disaster, but it wasn't as if Tegon hadn't faced death in the eye multiple times today.

The orca's next step brought his foot as close as it would get to the micro. Each boulder trembled in place while Enoka's other limb surged forward and displaced thousands of liters of air. Tegon sprung into the ether and bear-hugged the top of a toe as the foot arose. When it was firmly planted back on the floor he risked sliding right off the front. His palms were slick with both his and his partner's sweat. He scrambled to get higher on the foot before the next step sent him right back into peril. It was a continual fight against gravity as Enoka pushed his way outside and towards a set of barbells. After his last step the cetacean pivoted, his shorts getting caught in the breeze. Tegon, who had his gazed fixed above to time his movements, glimpsed a jet black tip poking from a loose sheath of flesh. Even soft the orca had girth, resting atop two swinging orbs.

Centrifugal force ended the show and sent the dragon flying off sideways. Sitting down on the workout bench, the orca planted his feet firmly. One toe pinned Tegon in place, leaving him facing sweaty, salty flesh. The dragon wanted no part, wiggling his body like a serpent to get at least one limb free. His snout pressed into the black of his friend's foot, rubbing the scent of the orca inadvertently across his face.

The orca began his reps, puffing out air regularly as he lifted. Every lift was a squeeze on Tegon's body. His toe bulged against the wooden deck, sending jolts through the dragon's body that made him howl. Enoka's foot then shifted, rolling Tegon's body over and over right to the edge of a plank. He swung over the edge, managing to hang on as the sole peeled away and shot ahead of him.

Compounding his situation was the rain, steadily falling but holding off on picking up for the time being. Sprinkles dotted the relatively clean wood planks, each droplet a splash that washed over Tegon's face and sent him into a momentary panic if he was not prepared for the salty water in his mouth.

Dangling in the gap between two planks, the dragon was desperate for another miracle. Falling below wouldn't kill him at ant-size, but it most certainly would doom him to death. At the house he had shelter, and relative safety from the hostile and violent world. He could live off of crumbs and drips from sinks, he was sure. It would be even safer after his friends went back to work without him, ensuring death by giant would be one less thing to worry about.

Down there was miles of sand with disgusting, repulsive creatures lurking underneath. His mind conjured pests with many legs and proboscises that might kill him as a perceived threat. It would take days to get back into the house if he even survived such a trial. Meanwhile the droplets of rain were a ticking clock. One splashed not too far away from where he hung, surface tension keeping the remaining water in a half-spherical shape. If one happened to fall on top of him there'd be no turning back.

Tegon planned his movements below, assuming a fall. A discarded drinking cup could make a shelter during the day, as long as the winds didn't pick up and blow the whole thing away. If he could come up with a way to push grains of sand inside it might be a viable option. He heard a high-pitched scree that pierced his musings but left his eardrums in peace, and turned to face the source. There on the knotted wood before him was an ant. Unlike the flea from earlier it was about the same size as him. Unfortunately, also unlike the flea it seemed to take a notice in him. It was hard to pin a line of sight on the compound eyes, but its little legs covered with the finest of hairs carried it towards the trapped micro. With waving antennae, its head dipped to face Tegon, serrated mandibles clicking menacingly. He swatted his free hand against the ant's face, which seemed to repel it. The insect backed up slightly, but gathered itself for a second attempt to menace the tiny. He could tell the ant was moving in an irregular pattern that would eventually bring them back face-to-face.

Then the sound of clinking metal ceased. The equipment above Tegon's head juddered and groaned as Enoka leaned forward and stood back up to his full height. The ant was distracted by this, sensing the shifting of air with his antennae. It moved a bit further away from Tegon and closer to the orca. One of Enoka's heels ascended before the rest of the foot lifted into the sky, pelting the ant and dragon alike with rather painful grains of sand. The other paw followed dutifully while the ant continued his inscrutable foraging.

The orca's black-and-white tail was the last part of him to leave the scene, draped off the edge of the exercise bench while he completed his reps. It slid off the top and slapped against the deck. That casual motion obliterated the ant before Tegon's eyes. In a blink, it went from alive to dead. Pop. Gone. No screeches anymore, just the sound of rain on orca flesh. As a punctuation of the orca's power he ground what was left against sand and wood fiber, his tail scraping along the deck's imperfections. Enoka's hips swayed slightly along with the music in his ears as he ventured back inside.

Without the dizzyingly-tall stompers to block his path, and under considerably less stressful conditions, he swung his free hand to bite into the wood and pull himself away from the pit below the deck. On solid ground now, Tegon looked around on one knee, swearing he saw an ant leg lying still in the distance. He began walking. That walking became a jog, and that jog became a sprint.

I have to get back to bed.

He was tired of the fucking skyscraper-giants, the fucking bugs, the fucking jumps and drops and hoops he was constantly jumping through. His body was covered in sand, sweat, both his and all of his friends', spit, chocolate cake, and frosting. Probably some flea or ant juice, too, courtesy of a few carelessly placed massive bodies. Not the most appetizing recipe. The dragon was exhausted mentally, emotionally, and perhaps most importantly, physically. He needed to sleep. And the safest place of all was where his 'adventure,' even if Tegon would disagree with the term, began.

Tegon ran, ran until he was out of breath, then ran some more. A minefield of falling raindrops he pirouetted around with expressionless features. He hopped onto the rubber corrugated threshold where the door to the inside stretched into the heavens and stair-stepped his way right over it. His green-and-black body slid down into the much cooler beach house. At the bottom of the threshold was a short swim across an accumulated lake of water tracked in by Enoka. His paws then pattered against hardwood as he barreled down the hallway to his room. The tears not splashing against his body simply fell to the sand-dotted floor. He navigated the crystals mindlessly, wordlessly reaching one of the legs of his bed and shimmying upward.

His friends couldn't help. This realization hit him like a ton of bricks somewhere along his latest trip. It hurt all the more as he was beginning to realize his value among them at normal size. They were, in fact, now adversaries. Movements beneath their notice, a twitch, a flex, and he was dead. Even a particularly loud shout would permanently deafen him or worse. He was in a different world, and all he had now was the microverse. Maybe he could tame a sand flea as transportation. Ants just seemed like assholes. The pain radiating from the pit of his stomach pushed these thoughts aside. His top priority was finding a good vantage point to watch out for the giants. The beasts would at least avoid his bed for a while longer.

Scampering over the sheets, the pain increased much as it did right before he got into this mess. He doubled over and fell to his knees, stopped in his tracks. He rocked himself into unconsciousness with his eyes squeezed tight.

"Tegon? Tegon?"

The sleep was short-lived. His reality shuttered to life from a dead standstill, ten times worse than his work alarm accidentally going off on a Saturday. Now he would have to dodge the fox again, whether it be a finger or paw or ass or whatever the universe decided to throw the dragon's way this time. Maybe there would be a perilous jump involved.

Who am I kidding? There's definitely going to be a perilous jump involved.

But the dragon was getting ahead of himself. This time the calling didn't make his perpetually ringing ears hurt. He took stock of his size under the sheets. One blink. Two. It was no mirage. Everything was in proportion once again. Another dream! The whole series of trials and torments was just a concoction of his feverish mind over the previous night. Tegon had no idea a nightmare could be so detailed, so cinematic.

What fucked up part of my head did that worm its way out of? Rain from the promised storm steadily beat against his window. For a flash he was back in micro mode, planning out how he would account for the potential hazard. Remembering he had a guest outside his door, the dragon poked his head out.

"C-come in!" His voice was shaky, not sure whether he could face one of his friends at a normal size anymore.

Quinn turned the knob and stood in the door. He angled his right foot vertically, letting the back of his flip flop hang in the air.

"Tegon, the man of the hour! What's up?" The fox smiled, leaning against the doorframe and pretending to sharpen his finger-claws. His face then wrinkled in thought, as if he didn't expect to see Tegon safe and sound in his bed.

"Nothing! Nothing!" Tegon shook his hand and pulled his sheets up to his chin.

"Eww, you're not going commando under there, are you?" His right foot slid down, toes planted and ready to leave depending on the answer.

The dragon's eyes shifted back up to his friend's face, and he suppressed a giggle.

Well, not like that was real, but Senna might have me beat. "No! I have clothes on, just-just had a crazy nightmare. I don't even wanna talk about it, it was so weird. Lemme throw a shirt on and I'll be right out."

His exhausted tone belied how grateful he was that everything was returning to normalcy. He could have a conversation with his friends without risking his life. If he pissed them off he would get a punch to the shoulder, not a foot to the face. Ants feared him, not the other way around. Strange he felt all dirty and sandy, though. He could have sworn he took a shower the previous night right before the card game.

"Huh. Okay." Quinn paused, confused, his toes flexing and splaying as the gears turned. "So was that nightmare before or after you went out?"

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Thank you for reading! Please leave a rating or comment below. Stay tuned for an illustration!